6 AUGUST – SAINTS SIXTUS II (Pope and Martyr) and FELICISSIMUS and AGAPITUS (Martyrs)

Sixtus II, a native of Athens, was first a philosopher, and then a disciple of Christ. He ruled the Church of Rome for only 11 months and 12 days. In the persecution of Valerian, he was accused of publicly preaching the faith of Christ, and was seized and dragged to the temple of Mars, where he was given his choice between death and offering sacrifice to the idols. As he firmly refused to commit such an impiety, he was led away to martyrdom. As he went, Saint Laurence met him, and with great sorrow, spoke to him in this manner: “Where do you go, Father, without your son? To where are you hastening, O holy priest, without your deacon?” Sixtus answered: “I am not "forsaking you, my son. A greater combat for the faith of Christ awaits you. In three days you will follow me, the Deacon will follow his Priest. In the meanwhile distribute among the poor whatever you have in the treasury.” Sixtus was put to death that same day, the eighth of the Ides of August, together with the Deacons Felicissimus and Agapitus, and the Subdeacons Januarius, Magnus, Vincent and Stephen. The Pope was buried in the cemetery of Callixtus, but the other martyrs in the cemetery of Praextatus.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

“Xistum in cimiterio animadversum sciatis octavo iduum augustarum, die. Know that Sixtus has been beheaded in the cemetery on the 8th of the Ides of August.” These words of Saint Cyprian mark the opening of a glorious period, both for the cycle and for history. From this day to the feast of Saint Cyprian himself, taking in that of the deacon Laurence, how many holocausts in a few weeks does the earth offer to the Most High God! One would think that the Church, on the feast of our Lord’s Transfiguration, was impatient to join her testimony as Bride, to that of the Prophets, of the Apostles, and of God Himself. Heaven proclaims Him well-beloved, the Earth also declares its love for Him: the testimony of blood and of every sort of heroism is the sublime echo wakened by the Father’s voice through all the valleys of our lowly Earth, to be prolonged through out all ages.

Let us then today salute this noble Pontiff, the first to go down into the arena opened wide by Valerian to all the soldiers of Christ. Among the brave leaders who, from Peter down to Melchiades, have headed the struggle by which Rome was both vanquished and saved, none is more illustrious as a martyr. He was seized in the Catacomb lying to the left of the Via Appia in the very chair in which, in spite of the recent edicts, he was presiding over the assembly of the brethren. And after the sentence had been pronounced by the judge he was brought back to the sacred crypt. There in that same chair, in the midst of the martyrs sleeping in the surrounding tombs their sleep of peace, the good and peaceful Pontiff received the stroke of death. Of the seven deacons of the Roman Church, six died with him. Laurence alone was left, inconsolable at having this time missed the palm, but trusting in the invitation given him to be at the heavenly altar in three days’ time.

Two of the Pontiff’s deacons were buried in the cemetery of Praetextatus, where the sublime scene had taken place. Sixtus and his blood-stained chair were carried to the other side of the Via Appia into the crypt of the Popes where they remained for long centuries an object of veneration to pilgrims. When Damasus in the days of peace adorned the tombs of the saints with his beautiful inscriptions, the entire cemetery of Callixtus, which includes the burial place of the Popes, received the title “of Caecilia” and “of Sixtus,” two glorious names inscribed by Rome upon the venerable diptychs of the Mass. Twice over on this day did the Holy Sacrifice summon the Christians to honour at each side of the principal way to the Eternal City the triumphant victims of the 8th of the Ides of August.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Burgos in Spain, in the monastery of St. Peter of Cardegna, of the Order of St. Benedict, two hundred monks with their abbot Stephen, who were put to death for the faith of Christ by the Saracens and buried in the monastery by Christians.

At Alcala in Spain, the holy martyrs Justus and Pastor, brothers. While they were yet schoolboys, they threw aside their books in school, and spontaneously ran to martyrdom. By order of the governor Dacian, they were arrested, beaten with rods, and as they exhorted each other to constancy, were led out of the city, and had their throats cut by the executioner.

At Rome, St. Hormisdas, pope and confessor.

At Amida, St. James, a hermit renowned for miracles.

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

Thanks be to God.

6 AUGUST – THE TRANSFIGURATION OF OUR LORD

 

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

“O God, who in the glorious transfiguration of your only-begotten Son, confirmed the mysteries of the faith by the testimony of the fathers: and who, in the voice which came from the bright cloud, did in a wonderful manner fore-signify our adoption as sons: mercifully vouchsafe to make us fellow-heirs of that King of glory, and the sharers of His bliss.” Such is the formula which sums up the prayer of the Church and shows us her thoughts on this day of attestation and of hope.

We must first notice that the glorious transfiguration has already been twice brought before us on the sacred cycle, viz., on the second Sunday of Lent and on the preceding Saturday. What does this mean but that the object of the present solemnity is not so much the historical fact already known as the permanent mystery attached to it: not so much the personal favour bestowed on Simon Peter and the sons of Zebedee, as the accomplishment of the great message then entrusted to them for the Church? “Tell the vision to no man, till the Son of man be risen from the dead” (Matthew xvii. 9). The Church, born from the open side of the Man-God on the Cross, was not to behold Him face-to-face on Earth. After His Resurrection when he had sealed His alliance with her in the Holy Ghost sent down from Heaven, it is on faith alone that her love was to be fed. But by the testimony which takes the place of sight, her lawful desires to know him were to be satisfied. Wherefore, for her sake, giving truce one day of His mortal life to the ordinary law of suffering and obscurity He had taken on Him for the world’s salvation, He allowed the glory which filled His blessed soul to transpire.

The King of Jews and Gentiles revealed Himself on the mountain where His calm splendour eclipsed forever more the lightnings of Sinai: the covenant of the eternal alliance was declared, not by the promulgation of a law of servitude graven on stone, but by the manifestation of the Lawgiver Himself, coming as Bride groom to reign in grace and beauty over hearts. Elias and Moses, representing the prophets and the Law by which His coming was prepared, from their different starting points met beside Him like faithful messengers reaching their destination. They did homage to the Master of their now finished mission, and effaced themselves before Him at the voice of the Father: “This is my beloved Son!” Three witnesses, the most trustworthy of all, assisted at this solemn scene: the disciple of faith, the disciple of love, and that other son of thunder who was to be the first to seal with his blood both the faith and the love of an Apostle. By His order they kept religiously, as beseemed them, the secret of the King, until the day when the Church could be the first to receive it from their predestined lips.

But did this precious mystery take place on the 6th of August? More than one Doctor of sacred rites affirms that it did. At any rate it was fitting to celebrate it in the month dedicated to eternal Wisdom. It is she, the brightness of eternal light, the unspotted mirror and image of God’s goodness (Wisdom vii. 26) who, shedding grace on the Son of man, made Him on this day the most beautiful among all His brethren and dictated more melodiously than ever to the inspired singer the accents of the Epithalamium: “My heart has uttered a good word: I speak my works to the king” (Psalm xliv. 2, 3). Seven months ago the mystery was first announced by the gentle light of the Epiphany, but by the virtue of the mystical seven here revealed once more, the beginnings of blessed hope which we then celebrated as children with the child Jesus have grown together with Him and with the Church: and the latter, established in unspeakable peace by the full growth which gives her to her Spouse, calls upon all her children to grow like her by the contemplation of the Son of God, even to the measure of the perfect age of Christ. We understand then why the Liturgy of today repeats the formulas and chants of the glorious Theophany: “Arise, be enlightened, O Jerusalem: for your light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon you” (Isaias lx. 1). It is because on the mountain together with our Lord the Bride also is glorified, having the glory of God.

While the face of Jesus shone as the sun, His garments became white as snow (Matthew xvii. 2). Now these garments so snow-white, as Saint Mark observes, that no fuller on Earth could have bleached them so, are the just men, the royal ornament inseparable from the Man-God, the Church, the seamless robe woven by our sweet Queen for her Son out of the purest wool and most beautiful linen that the valiant woman could find. Although our Lord personally has now passed the torrent of suffering and entered forever into His glory, nevertheless the bright mystery of the Transfiguration will not be complete until the last of the elect, having passed through the laborious preparation at the hands of the Divine Fuller and tasted death, has joined in the Resurrection of our adorable Head.

O Face of our Saviour that ravishes the heavens, then will all glory, all beauty, all love shine forth from you. Expressing God by the perfect resemblance of true Son by nature, you will extend the good pleasure of the Father to that reflection of His Word, which constitutes the sons of adoption and reaches in the Holy Ghost even to the lowest fringes of His garment which fills the temple below Him. According to the doctrine of the Angel of the schools, the adoption of sons of God, which consists in being conformable to the image of the Son of God by nature, is wrought in a double manner: first by grace in this life, and this is imperfect conformity. And then by glory in patria, and this is perfect conformity, according to the words of Saint John: “We are now the sons of God ; and it has not yet appeared what we will be. We know that when He will appear, we will be like Him: because we will see Him as He is” (1 John iii. 2). The word of eternity, “You are my Son, this day have I begotten you,” has had two echoes in time, at the Jordan and on Thabor. And God, who never repeats Himself, did not herein make an exception to the rule of saying but once what he says. For although thee terms used on the two occasions are identical, they do not tend, as Saint Thomas says, to the same end, but show the different ways in which man participates in the resemblance of the eternal filiation. At the baptism of our Lord, where the mystery of the first regeneration was declared, as at the Transfiguration which manifested the second, the whole Trinity appeared: the Father in the voice, the Son in His Humanity, the Holy Ghost under the form, first of a dove, and afterwards of a bright cloud: for if in baptism this Holy Spirit confers innocence symbolised by the simplicity of the dove, in the Resurrection He will give to the elect the brightness of glory and the refreshment after suffering which are signified by the luminous cloud.

But without waiting for the day when our Saviour will renew our very bodies conformable to the bright glory of His own divine Body, the mystery of the Transfiguration is wrought in our souls already here on Earth. It is of the present life that Saint Paul says, and the Church sings today: “God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Christ Jesus” (2 Corinthians iv. 6). Thabor, holy and divine mountain rivalling Heaven, how can we help saying with Peter: “It is good for us to dwell on your summit!” For your summit is love, it is charity which towers above the other virtues, as you tower in gracefulness, and loftiness, and fragrance over the other mountains of Galilee, which saw Jesus passing, speaking, praying, working prodigies, but did not know Him in the intimacy of the perfect. It is after six days, as the Gospel observes, and therefore in the repose of the seventh which leads to the eighth of the Resurrection, that Jesus reveals Himself to the privileged souls who correspond to His love. The Kingdom of God is within us when, leaving all impressions of the senses as it were asleep, we raise ourselves above the works and cares of the world by prayer, it is given us to enter with the Man-God into the cloud: there beholding the glory of the Lord with open face, as far as is compatible with our exile, we are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord (2 Corinthians iii. 18). “Let us then,” cries Saint Ambrose, “ascend the mountain. Let us beseech the Word of God to show Himself to us in His splendour, in His beauty, to grow strong and proceed prosperously, and reign in our souls. For behold a deep mystery! According to your measure, the Word diminishes or grows within you. If you reach not that summit, high above all human thought, Wisdom will not appear to you. The Word shows Himself to you as in a body without brightness and without glory.”

If the vocation revealed to you this day be so great and so holy, “reverence the call of God,” says Saint Andrew of Crete: “do not ignore yourself, despise not a gift so great, show not yourself unworthy of the grace, be not so slothful in your life as to lose this treasure of Heaven. Leave Earth to the earth, and let the dead bury their dead. Disdaining all that passes away, all that dies with the world and the flesh, follow even to Heaven, without turning aside, Christ who leads the way through this world for you. Take to your assistance fear and desire, lest you faint or lose your love. Give yourself up wholly. Be supple to the Word in the Holy Ghost, in order to attain this pure and blessed end: your deification, together with the enjoyment of unspeakable goods. By zeal for the virtues, by contemplation of the truth, by wisdom, attain to Wisdom, who is the principle of all, and in whom all things subsist.”

The feast of the Transfiguration has been kept in the East from the earliest times. With the Greeks it is preceded by a Vigil and followed by an Octave, and on it they abstain from servile work, from commerce, and from law-suits. Under the graceful name of Rose-flame, rosae coruscatio, we find it in Armenia at the beginning of the fourth century, supplanting Diana and her feast of flowers by the remembrance of the day when the divine Rose unfolded for a moment on earth its brilliant corolla. It is preceded by a whole week of fasting, and counts among the five principal feasts of the Armenian cycle, where it gives its name to one of the eight divisions of the year. Although the Menology of this Church marks it on the sixth of August like that of the Greeks and the Roman Martyrology, it is nevertheless always celebrated there on the seventh Sunday after Pentecost. And by a coincidence full of meaning, they honour on the preceding Saturday the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, a figure of the Church.

The origin of today’s feast in the West is not so easy to determine. But the authors who place its introduction into our countries as late as 1457 when Callixtus III promulgated by precept a new Office enriched with indulgences, overlook the fact that the Pontiff speaks of the feast as already widespread and “commonly called of the Saviour.” It is true that in Rome especially the celebrity of the more ancient feast of Saint Sixtus II, with its double Station at the two cemeteries which received respectively the relics of the Pontiff-Martyr and those of his companions, was for a long time an obstacle to the acceptance of another feast on the same day. Some Churches, to avoid the difficulty, chose another day in the year to honour the mystery. As the feast of our Lady of the Snow, so that of the Transfiguration had to spread more or less privately, with various Offices and Masses, until the supreme authority should intervene to sanction and bring to unity the expressions of the devotion of different Churches. Callixtus III considered that the hour had come to consecrate the work of centuries. He made the solemn and definitive insertion of this feast of triumph on the universal Calendar the memorial of the victory which arrested, under the walls of Belgrade in 1456, the onward march of Mahomet II, conqueror of Byzantium, against Christendom. Already in the ninth century, if not even earlier, martyrologies and other liturgical documents furnish proofs that the mystery was celebrated with more or less solemnity, or at least with some sort of commemoration, in divers places. In the twelfth century Peter the Venerable, under whose government Cluny took possession of Thabor, ordained that in all the monasteries or churches belonging to his Order, the Transfiguration should be celebrated with the same degree of solemnity as the Purification of our Lady, and he gave for his reason, besides the dignity of the mystery, the “custom, ancient or recent, of many Churches throughout the world, which celebrate the memory of the said Transfiguration with no less honour than the Epiphany and the Ascension of our Lord.”

On the other hand at Bologna in 1233, in the juridical instruction preliminary to the canonisation of Saint Dominic, the death of the Saint is declared to have taken place on the feast of Saint Sixtus, without mention of any other. It is true, and we believe this detail is not void of meaning, that a few years earlier, Sicardus of Cremona thus expressed himself in his Mitrale: “We celebrate the Transfiguration of our Lord on the day of Saint Sixtus.” Is not this sufficient indication that while the feast of the latter continued to give its traditional name to the eighth of the Ides of August, it did not prevent a new and greater solemnity from taking its place beside it, preparatory to absorbing it altogether? For he adds: “Therefore on this same day, as the Transfiguration refers to the state in which the faithful will be after the resurrection, we consecrate the Blood of our Lord from new wine, if it is possible to obtain it, in order to signify what is said in the Gospel: ‘I will not drink from henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I will drink it with you new in the kingdom of my Father.’ But if it cannot be procured, then at least a few ripe grapes are pressed over the chalice, or else grapes are blessed and distributed to the people.”

The author of the Mitrale died in 1215, yet he was only repeating the explanation already given in the second half of the preceding century by John Beleth, Rector of the Paris University. We must admit that the very ancient benedictio uvoe found in the Sacramentaries on the day of Saint Sixtus has nothing corresponding to it in the life of the great Pope which could justify our referring it to him. The Greeks, who have also this blessing of grapes fixed for the 6th August, celebrate on this day the Transfiguration alone, without any commemoration of Sixtus II. Be it as it may, the words of the Bishop of Cremona and of the Rector of Paris prove that Durandus of Mende, giving at the end of the thirteenth century the same symbolical interpretation, did but echo a tradition more ancient than his own time.

Epistle – 2 Peter i. 16‒19

Dearly beloved, we have not by following artificial fables made known to you the power and presence of our Lord Jesus Christ. But we were eyewitnesses of His greatness. For He received from God the Father, honour and glory: this voice coming down to Him from the excellent glory: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear Him”. And this voice we heard brought from Heaven, when we were with him in the holy mount. And we have the more firm prophetical word: whereunto you do well to attend, as to a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns, and the day star arises in your hearts.

Thanks be to God.

Gospel – Matthew xvii. 1‒9

After six days Jesus took with Him Peter and James, and John His brother, and brought them up into a high mountain apart. And He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun and His garments became as white as snow. Behold there appeared to them Moses and Elijah talking with Him. And Peter answering, said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here: if you wish, let us make here three tabernacles, one for you, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” As he was still speaking a bright cloud overshadowed them and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Listen to Him.” The disciples hearing, fell on their faces and were very much afraid. Jesus came and touched them, and said to them, “Arise, and fear not.” Lifting up their eyes saw no-one but only Jesus. And as they came down from the mountain, Jesus charged them, saying, “Tell the vision to no man, till the Son of man is risen from the dead.”

Praise be to you, O Christ.

5 AUGUST – DEDICATION OF OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS: BASILICA OF SANTA MARIA MAGGIORE

According to tradition, on the night of the 4th of August 352 AD the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to Pope Liberius and a Roman patrician couple and admonished them all to build a church on the Esquiline Hill on the spot where, next morning, they would fine a patch of snow covering the exact area to be built over. Being childless, John and his wife vowed their wealth to Our Lady and built the Basilica at their own personal expense. Between 432 and 440 Pope Sixtus III rebuilt it and dedicated it to the Blessed Virgin Mary who the Council of Ephesus of 431 had proclaimed to be the Mother of God. Pope Eugenius III completely renewed the interior and erected a facade and portico. Pope Nicholas IV further restored the Basilica and enlarged it by adding a number of chapels. Pope Clement X rebuilt the apse and Pope Benedict XIV added the main facade by Carlo Rainaldi. It was first called the ‘Basilica Liberiana’ after Pope Liberius (or ‘the Basilica of Saint Mary, which anciently was called the Liberian, by the Market of Livia’). From the seventh century it became known as Santa Maria del Presepio, and in the tenth century it was renamed Santa Maria della Neve. Since the fourteenth century the Basilica has been known by its present name, appropriately as it is the oldest and largest Roman sanctuary dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Dedication of the Church of Our Lady of the Snows is commemorated on 5 August each year with Pontifical High Mass.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Rome, delivered from slavery by Peter on the first of this month, offers to the world a wonderful spectacle. O Wisdom, who, since the glorious Pentecost, has spread over the whole world, where could it be more true to sing of you that you have trodden the proud heights under your victorious feet?

On Seven Hills had pagan Rome set up her pageantry and built temples to her false gods. Seven Churches now appear at the summits on which purified Rome rests her now truly eternal foundations. By their very site, the basilicas of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, of Saint Laurence and Saint Sebastian, placed at the four outer angles of the city of the Caesars, recall the long siege continued for three centuries around the ancient Rome, while the new Rome was being founded. Helena and her son Constantine, recommencing the work of the foundations of the holy City, carried the trenches further out. Nevertheless, the churches which were their own peculiar work, viz., Holy Cross in Jerusalem and Saint Saviour’s on the Lateran, are still at the very entrance of the pagan stronghold, close to the gates and leaning against the ramparts, just as a soldier setting foot within a tremendous fortress which has been long invested advances cautiously, surveying both the breach through which he has just passed, and the labyrinth of unknown paths opening before him.

Who will plant the standard of Sion in the centre of Babylon? Who will force the enemy into his last retreat and, casting out the vain idols, set up His palace in their temples? O you to whom was said this word of the Most High: “You are my Son, I will you the Gentiles for your inheritance,” you mighty One, with your sharp arrows routing armies, listen to the cry re-echoing from the whole redeemed world: “With your comeliness and your beauty set out, proceed prosperously and reign!” But the Son of the Most High has a Mother on Earth. The song of the Psalmist inviting Him to the triumph extols also the Queen standing at His right hand in a vesture of gold. If it is from His Father that He holds His power, it is from His Mother that He receives His crown, and He leaves her in return the spoils of the mighty. Go forth then, you daughters of the new Sion, and behold King Solomon in the diadem with which His Mother crowned Him on the joyful day when, taking possession through her of the capital of the world, He espoused the Gentile race. Truly that was a day of joy when Mary, in the name of Jesus, claimed her right as sovereign and heiress of the Roman soil! To the East, at the highest point of the eternal City, she appeared on that blessed morning literally like the rising dawn: beautiful as the moon shining by night; more powerful than the August sun, surprised to see her tempering His heat, and doubling the brightness of His light with her mantle of snow; more terrible than an army, for from that date, daring what neither Apostles nor Martyrs had attempted, and what Jesus Himself would not do without her, she dispossessed the deities of Olympus of their usurped thrones. As was fitting, the haughty Juno whose altar disgraced the Esquiline, the false queen of these lying gods was the first to flee before Mary’s face, leaving the splendid columns of her polluted sanctuary to the only true Queen of Earth and Heaven.

Forty years had passed since the days of Saint Sylvester when the “image of our Saviour, depicted on the walls of the Lateran, appeared for the first time to the Roman people.” Rome, still half pagan, beheld today the Mother of our Saviour. Under the influence of the pure symbol at which she gazed in surprise, she felt die down within her the evil ardour which made her once the scourge of nations, whereas now she was to become their mother; and in the joy of her renewed youth she beheld her once sullied hills covered with the white garment of the Bride. Even from the times of the Apostolic preaching, the elect, who gathered in large numbers in Rome in spite of herself, knew Mary and paid to her in those days of martyrdom a homage such as no other creature could ever receive: witness in the catacombs those primitive frescoes of our Lady, either alone or holding her divine Child, but always seated, receiving from her place of honour the praise, messages, prayers or gifts of prophets, Archangels, and kings. In the Trastevere, where in the reign of Augustus a mysterious fountain of oil had sprung up announcing the coming of the Anointed of the Lord, Pope Callixtus in 222 had built a church in honour of her who is ever the true fons olei, the source from which sprang Christ, and together with Him all unction and all grace. The basilica raised by Liberius, the beloved of our Lady, on the Esquiline, was not then the most ancient monument dedicated by the Christians of Rome to the Mother of God. But it at once took, and has always kept, the first place among our Lady’s churches in the city, and indeed in the world, on account of the solemn and miraculous circumstances of its origin.

“Have you entered,” said the Lord to Job, “into the storehouses of the snow, or have you beheld the treasures of the hail which I have prepared for the time of the enem, against the day of battle and war?” (Job xxxviii. 22, 23) On the 5th August, then, at God’s command the treasures were opened, and the snow was scattered like birds lighting upon the earth, and its coming was the signal for the lightnings of His judgements on the gods of the nations. The Tower of David now dominates over all the towers of the earthly city. From her impregnable position our Lady will never cease her victorious sallies till she has taken the last hostile fort. How beautiful will your steps be in these warlike expeditions, O daughter of the prince, O Queen, whose standard, by the will of your adorable Son, must wave over the whole world rescued from the power of the cursed serpent! The ignominious goddess, overthrown from her impure pedestal by one glance of yours, left Rome still dishonoured by the presence of many vain idols. But you, all-conquering Lady, continued your triumphal march. The Church of Saint Mary in Aracoeli replaced on the Capitol the odious temple of Jupiter. The sanctuaries and groves dedicated to Vesta, Minerva, Ceres and Proserpine hastened to take the title of one who had been shown in their fabulous history under disfigured and degraded forms. The deserted Pantheon awaited the day when it was to receive the noble and magnificent name of Saint Mary ad Martyres. What a preparation for your glorious Assumption is the series of earthly triumphs which this day inaugurates!

The Basilica of Saint Mary of the Snow, called also of Liberius, from its founder, and also of Sixtus, after Sixtus III who restored it, owed to this last the honour of becoming the monument of the divine Maternity proclaimed at Ephesus. The name of Saint Mary Mother, which it received on that occasion, became under Theodore I, who enriched it with the most precious relic, Saint Mary of the Crib: all these noble titles were after wards gathered into that of Saint Mary Major, which is amply justified by the facts we have related, by universal devotion, and by the pre-eminence always assigned to it by the Sovereign Pontiffs. Though the last in order of time of the seven churches on which Christian Rome is founded, it nevertheless ranked in the Middle Ages next to that of Saint Saviour. In the procession of the greater Litanies on April 25th the ancient Roman Ordo assigned to the Cross of Saint Mary’s its place between that of Saint. Peter’s, below it, and that of the Lateran, which followed it. The important and numerous liturgical Stations appointed at the Basilica on the Esquiline testify to the devotion of the Romans and of all Catholics towards it. It was honoured by having councils celebrated and Vicars of Christ elected within its walls. The Pontiffs for a time made it their residence, and were accustomed on the Ember Wednesdays, when the Station was always held there, to publish there the names of the Cardinal Deacons or Cardinal Priests whom they had resolved to create.

As to the annual solemnity of its dedication, which is the object of the present feast, there can be no doubt that it was celebrated on the Esquiline at a very early date. It was, however, not yet kept by the whole Church in the thirteenth century, for Pope Gregory IX in the bull of canonisation of Saint Dominic, whose death occurred on the 6th August, anticipated his feast on the 5th of the month as being at that time vacant, whereas the 6th was already occupied, as we will see tomorrow by another solemnity. It was Pope Paul IV who in 1558 definitively fixed the feast of the holy founder on the 4th August, and the reason he gives is that the feast of Saint Mary of the Snow having since been made universal and taking precedence of the other, the honour due to the holy patriarch might be put in the shade if his feast continued to be kept on the same day.

WHAT recollections, O Mary, does this feast of your greatest basilica awaken within us! And what worthier praise, what better prayer, could we offer you today than to remind you of the graces we have received within its precincts, and implore you to renew them and confirm them forever ? United with our Mother-Church in spite of distance, have we not, under its shadow, tasted the sweetest and most triumphant emotions of the Cycle now verging on to its term? On the first Sunday of Advent, it was here that we began the year, as in the place “most suitable” for saluting the approach of the Divine Birth, which was to gladden heaven and earth and manifest the sublime portent of a Virgin Mother. Our hearts were overflowing with desire on that holy Vigil when from early morning we were invited to the bright basilica where the mystical Rose was soon to bloom and fill the world with its fragrance. The grandest of all the churches which the people of Rome have erected in honour of the Mother of God, it stood before us rich in its marble and gold, but richer still in possessing, together with the portrait of our Lady painted by Saint Luke, the humble yet glorious Crib of Jesus, of which the inscrutable designs of God have deprived Bethlehem. During that blessed night an immense concourse of people assembled in the basilica awaiting the happy moment when that monument of the love and the humiliation of a God was to be brought in, carried on the shoulders of the priests as an ark of the New Covenant, whose welcome sight gives the sinner confidence and makes the just man thrill with joy. Alas, a few months passed away, and we were again in the noble sanctuary, this time compassionating our holy Mother whose heart was filled with poignant grief at the foresight of the sacrifice which was preparing. But soon the august basilica was filled once more with new joys, when Rome justly associated with the Paschal solemnity the memory of her who, more than all other creatures, had merited its joys, not only because of the exceptional share she had had in all the sufferings of Jesus, but also because of the unshaken faith with which during those long and cruel hours of His lying in the tomb she had awaited His Resurrection. Dazzling as the snow which fell from Heaven to mark the place of your predilection on Earth, O Mary, a white-robed band of neophytes coming up from the waters formed your graceful court and enhanced the triumph of that great day. Obtain for them and for us all, O Mother, affections as pure as the white marble columns of your loved church, charity as bright as the gold glittering on its ceiling, works shining as the Paschal Candle, that symbol of Christ the conqueror of death, which offered you the homage of its first flames.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Rome, during the persecution of Diocletian, the martyrdom of twenty three holy martyrs who were beheaded on the Via Salaria and buried at the foot of Cucumer hill.

At Augsburg, the birthday of St. Afra, martyr. After being converted from paganism by the instructions of bishop St. Narcissus, and being baptised with all her household, she was delivered to the flames for the confession of Christ.

At Ascoli in the Marches of Ancona, St. Emygdins, bishop and martyr, who was consecrated bishop by Pope St. Marcellus, and sent there to preach the Gospel. He received the crown of martyrdom for the confession of Christ under the emperor Diocletian.

At Antioch, St. Eusignius, a soldier, who at the age of one hundred and ten years, because he reproached Julian the Apostate for forsaking the faith of Constantine the Great, under whom he had served, and for having degenerated from his ancestors’ piety, was decapitated by his command.

Also the holy martyrs Cantidius, Cantidian, and Sobel, Egyptians.

At Chalons in France, St. Memmius, a Roman citizen, who, being consecrated bishop of that city by the blessed Apostle St. Peter, brought to the truth of the Gospel the people committed to his care.

At Autun, blessed Cassian, bishop.

At Teano, St. Paris, bishop.

In England, St. Oswald, king, whose life is related by the Venerable Bede.

The same day, St. Nonna, mother of blessed Gregory Nazianzen.

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

Thanks be to God.

4 AUGUST – SAINT DOMINIC (Confessor)

Dominic was born at Calaruega, in Spain, of the noble family of the Guzmans, and went through his liberal and theological studies at Palencia. He made great progress in learning, and became a Canon Regular of the Church, of Osma, and afterwards instituted the Order of Friars Preachers. While his mother was with child, she dreamt she was carrying in her womb a little dog holding a torch in his mouth with which, as soon as he was born, he would set fire to the world. This dream signified that he would kindle Christian piety among the nations by the splendour of his sanctity and teaching. Events proved its truth, for he fulfilled the prophecy both in person, and later on by the brethren of his Order. His genius and virtue shone forth especially in confounding the heretics who were attempting to infect the people of Toulouse with their baneful errors. He was occupied for seven years in this undertaking. Then he went to Rome for the Council of Lateran, with the bishop of Toulouse, to obtain from Pope Innocent III the confirmation of the Order he had instituted. But while the matter was under consideration, the Pope advised Dominic to return to his disciples and choose a rule. On his return to Rome, he obtained the confirmation of the Order of Preachers from Pope Honorius III, the immediate successor of Pope Innocent III. In Rome itself he founded two monasteries, one for men and the other for women. He raised three dead to life, and worked many other miracles, in consequence of which the Order of Preachers began to spread in a wonderful manner. Monasteries were built by his means in every part of the world, and through his teaching numbers of men embraced a holy and religious manner of life. In 1221 he fell into a fever at Bologna. When he saw he was about to die, calling together his brethren and children, he exhorted them to innocence and purity of life, and left them as their true inheritance the virtues of charity, humility, and poverty. While the brethren were praying round him, at the words, “Come to his aid, you Saints of God, run to meet him, O you Angels,” he fell asleep in the Lord, on the eighth of the Ides of August. Pope Gregory IX. placed him among the Saints.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

“The father of the Preachers,” said the Eternal Father to Saint Catherine of Siena, “established his principle on the light, by making it his aim and his armour. He took upon him the office of the Word my Son, sowing my word, dispelling darkness, enlightening the Earth. Mary, by whom I gave him to the world, made him the extirpator of heresies.”

The Order called to become the chief support of the Sovereign Pontiff in uprooting pernicious doctrines ought, if possible, to justify that name even more than its Patriarch: the first of the tribunals of Holy Church, the Holy Roman Universal Inquisition, the Holy Office, truly invested with the Office of the Word with his two-edged sword to convert or to chastise, could find no instrument more trusty or more sure. Little thought the virgin of Siena, or the illustrious author of the Divina Commedia, that the chief title of the Dominican family to the grateful love of the people would be discussed in a certain apologetic school, and there discarded as insulting, or dissembled as unpleasant. The present age glories in a liberalism which has given proofs of its power by multiplying rains, and which rests on no better philosophical basis than a strange confusion between licence and liberty: only such intellectual grovelling could have failed to understand that in a society which has faith for the basis of its institutions as well as the principle of salvation for all, no crime could equal that of shaking the foundation on which thus rest both social interest and the most precious possession of individuals. Neither the idea of justice, nor still less that of liberty, could consist in leaving to the mercy of evil or evil men, the weak who are unable to protect themselves. This truth was the axiom and the glory of chivalry: the brothers of Peter the Martyr devoted their lives to protect the safety of the children of God against the surprises of the strong armed one, and the “business that walks about in the dark” (Psalms xc. 6). It was the honour of the “saintly flock led by Dominic along a way, where they thrive well who do not go astray” (Dante, Paradiso, Canto x.).

Who could be truer knights than those athletes of the faith taking their sacred vow in the form of allegiance and choosing for their Lady her who, terrible as an army, alone crushes heresies through out the whole world. To the buckler of truth and the sword of the word, she who keeps in Sion the armour of valiant men added for her devoted liege men the Rosary, the special mark of her own militia. She, as being their true commander-in-chief, assigned them the habit of her choice, and in the person of Blessed Reginald anointed them with her own hands for the battle. She herself too watched over the recruiting of the holy band, attracting to it from among the elite youth of the universities, souls the purest, the most generously devoted, and of the noblest intellect. At Paris, the capital of theology, and Bologna, of law and jurisprudence, masters and scholars, disciples of every branch of science, were pursued and overtaken by the sweet Queen amid incidents more heavenly than earthly. How graceful were those beginnings in which Dominic’s virginal serenity seemed to surround all his children! It was indeed in this the Order of light that the Gospel word was seen verified: “Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God” (Matthew v. 8).

Eyes enlightened from above beheld the foundations of the Friars Preachers under the figure of fields of lilies. And Mary, by whom the Splendour of Eternal Light came down to us, became their heavenly mistress and led them from every science to wisdom, the friend of pure hearts. She came accompanied by Cecilia and Catherine, to bless their rest at night, and covered them all with her royal mantle beside the throne of our Lord. After this we are not astonished at the freshness and purity which continued even after Saint Dominic, under the generalship of Jordan of Saxony, Raymund of Pennafort, John the Teutonic and Humbert de Romans, in those Lives of the Brethren, and Lives of the Sisters, so happily handed down to us. It is instructive to note that in the Dominican family, apostolic in its very essence, the Sisters were founded ten years before the Brethren, which shows how, in the Church of God, action can never be fruitful unless preceded and accompanied by contemplation, which obtains for it every blessing and grace.

Notre Dame de Prouille, at the foot of the Pyrenees, was not only by this right of primogeniture, the beginning of the whole Order. It was here also that the first companions of Saint Dominic made with him their choice of a Rul, and divided the world among them, going from here to found the Convents of Saint Romanus at Toulouse, Saint James at Paris, Saint Nicholas at Bologna, Saint Sixtus and Saint Sabina in the Eternal City. About the same period, the establishment of the Militia of Jesus Christ, placed under the direction of the Friars Preachers secular persons who undertook to defend, by all the means in their power, the goods and liberty of the Church against the aggressions of heresy. When the sectaries had laid down their arms leaving the world in peace for a time, the association did not disappear: it continued to fight with spiritual arms, and changed its name into that of Third Order of Brothers and Sisters of Penance of Saint Dominic.

* * * * *

HOW many sons and daughters surround you on the Sacred Cycle! This very month, Rose of Lima and Hyacinth keep you company, and your coming has long since been heralded in the Liturgy by Raymund of Pennafort, Thomas of Aquinas, Vincent Ferrer, Peter the Martyr, Catherine of Siena, Pius V and Antoninus. And now at length appears in the firmament the new star whose brightness dispels ignorance, confounds heresy, increases the faith of believers. O Dominic, your blessed mother who preceded you to Heaven, now penetrates in all its fullness the happy meaning of that mysterious vision which once excited her fears. And that other Dominic, the glory of ancient Silos, at whose tomb she received the promise of your blessed birth, rejoices at the tenfold splendour given by you for all eternity to the beautiful name he bequeathed you. But what a special welcome you receive from the Mother of all grace, who heretofore, embracing the feet of her angered Son, stood surety that you would bring back the world to its Saviour! A few years passed away and error, put to confusion, felt that a deadly struggle was engaged between itself and thy family. The Lateran Church saw its walls, which were threatening to fall, strengthened for a time, and the two Princes of the Apostles who had bidden you go and preach, rejoice that the word has gone forth once more into the whole world.

Stricken with barrenness, the nations which the Apocalypse likens to great waters, seemed to have become once for all corrupt. The prostitute of Babylon was setting up her throne before the time when, in imitation of Eliseus, putting the salt of Wisdom into the new vessel of the Order founded by you, you cast this divine salt into the unhealthy waters, neutralised the poison of the beast so soon risen up again, and in spite of the snares which will never cease, rendered the earth habitable once more. How clearly your example shows us that they alone are powerful before God and over the people, who give themselves up to Him without seeking anything else, and only give to others out of their own fullness. Despising, as your historians tell us, every opportunity and every science where Eternal Wisdom was not to be seen, your youth was charmed with her alone. And she, who prevents those that seek her, inundated you from your earliest years with the light and the anticipated sweetness of Heaven. It is from her that overflowed on you that radiant serenity which so struck your contemporaries, and which no occurrence could ever alter. In heavenly peace you drank long draughts from the ever-flowing fountain springing up into eternal life, but while your inmost soul was thus slaking the thirst of its love, the divine source produced a marvellous fecundity, and its streams becoming yours, your fountains were conveyed abroad in the streets, you divide your waters. You had welcomed Wisdom and she exalted you. Not content to adorn your brow with the rays of the mysterious star, she gave you also the glory of patriarchs, and multiplied your years and your works in those of your sons. In them you have not ceased to be one of the strongest stays of the Church. Science has made your name wonderful among the nations, and because of it their youth is honoured by the ancients. May it ever be for them, as it was for their elders, both the fruit of Wisdom and the way that leads to her. May it be fostered by prayer, for your holy Order so well keeps up the beautiful traditions of prayer, as to approach the nearest, in that respect, to the ancient monastic Orders. To praise, to bless and to preach will be to the end its loved motto, for its apostolate must be, according to the word of the Psalm, the overflowing of the abundance of sweetness tasted in communication with God. Thus strengthened in Sion, thus blessed in its glorious role of propagator and guardian of the truth, your noble family will ever deserve to hear, from the mouth of our Lady herself, that encouragement above all praise: Fortiter, fortiter, viri fortes! “Courage, courage, you men of courage!”

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Thessalonica, the birthday of blessed Aristarchus, a disciple and inseparable companion of the blessed Apostle St. Paul, who writes to the Colossians: “My fellow-prisoner Aristarchus salutes you.” He was consecrated bishop of the Thessalonians by the same Apostle, and after long sufferings under Nero, crowned by Christ, rested in peace.

At Rome, on the Via Latina, the martyrdom of blessed Tertullinus, priest and martyr, in the time of emperor Valerian. After being cruelly beaten with rods, after having his sides burned, his mouth shattered, after being stretched on the rack and scourged with whips, he completed his martyrdom by being beheaded.

At Constantinople, the holy martyr Eleutherius, of the senatorial rank, who was put to the sword for Christ in the persecution of Maximian.

In Persia, in the time of king Sapor, the holy martyr Ia and her companions, who, with nine thousand Christian captives, underwent martyrdom after having been subjected to various torments.

At Cologne, St. Protasius, martyr.

At Verona, St. Agabius, bishop and confessor.

At Tours, St. Euphronius, bishop.

At Rome, St. Perpetua, who was baptised by the blessed Apostle St. Peter. She converted to the faith her son Nazarius and her husband Africanus, buried the remains of many holy martyrs, and finally went to our Lord endowed with an abundance of merit.

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

Thanks be to God.

3 AUGUST – THE INVENTION OF SAINT STEPHEN (First Martyr)

During the reign of the emperor Honorius, the bodies of Saint Stephen the Protomartyr, Gamaliel, Nicodemus and Abibas were found near Jerusalem. They had long lain buried, unknown and neglected, when they were revealed by God to a priest named Lucian. While he was asleep, Gamaliel appeared to him as a venerable and majestic old man, and showed him the spot where the bodies lay, commanding him to go to Bishop John of Jerusalem, and persuade him to give these bodies more honourable burial.On hearing this, the Bishop of Jerusalem assembled the neighbouring Bishops and clergy, and went to the spot indicated. The tombs were found, and from them exhaled a most sweet odour. At the rumour at what had occurred, a great crowd came together and many of them who were sick and weak from various ailments went away perfectly cured. The sacred body of Saint Stephen was then earned with great honour to the holy church of Sion. Under Theodosius the younger it was carried to Constantinople, and from there it was translated to Rome under Pope Pelagius I and placed in the tomb of Saint Laurence the Martyr, in Agro Verano.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Urged by the approach of Laurence’s triumph, Stephen rises to assist at his combat. It is a meeting full of beauty and strength, revealing the work of Eternal Wisdom in the arrangement of the sacred Cycle. But the present feast has other teachings also to offer us.

The first resurrection of which we spoke above continues for the Saints. After Nazarius and Celsus, and all the martyrs whom the victory of Christ has shown to be partakers of His glory according to the divine promise, the standard-bearer of the white robed army Himself rises glorious from His tomb to lead the way for new triumphs. The fierce auxiliaries of God’s anger against idolatrous Rome, after reducing the false gods to powder, must in their turn be subjugated. And this second victory will be the work of the martyrs aiding the Church by their miracles, as the first was that of their faith despising death and tortures. The received method of writing history in our days ignores such considerations. That is no reason why we should follow the fashion: the exactitude of its data, on which the science of this age plumes itself, is but one more proof that falsehood is as easily nurtured by omissions as by positive misstatements. Now the more profound the present silence on the question, the more certain it is that the very years which beheld the barbarians invading and overturning the empire were signalised by an effusion of virtue from on high, comparable in more than one respect to that which marked the times of the Apostolic preaching. Nothing less was required to reassure the faithful on the one hand, and on the other to inspire with respect for the Church these brutal invaders, who knew do right but might, and felt nothing but disdain for the race they had conquered.

The divine intention in surrounding the fall of Rome in 410 with discoveries of Saints’ bodies was clearly manifested in the most important of these inventions, the one we celebrate today. The year 415 had opened. Italy, Gaul and Spain were being invaded, Africa was about to share their fate. Amid the universal ruin, the Christians, in whom alone resided the hope of the world, put up their petitions at every sanctuary to obtain at least, according to the expression of the Spanish priest Avitus, “that the Lord would inspire with gentleness those whom he suffered to prevail.” It was then that took place that marvellous revelation which the severe critic Tillemont, convinced by the testimony of all the chronicles, histories, letters and discourses of the time, allows to be “one of the most celebrated events of the fifth century.” Through the intermediary of the priest Lucian, John, Bishop of Jerusalem, received from Saint Stephen the first Martyr and his companions in the tomb, a message couched in these terms: “Make haste to open our sepulchre, that by our means God may open to the world the door of His clemency, and may take pity on his people in the universal tribulation.” The discovery, accomplished in the midst of prodigies, was published to the whole world as the sign of salvation. Saint Stephen’s relics, scattered everywhere in token of security and peace, wrought astonishing conversions. Innumerable miracles, “like those of ancient times,” bore witness to the same faith of Christ which the martyr had confessed by his death four centuries earlier.

Such was the extraordinary character of this manifestation, so astonishing was the number of resurrections of the dead, that Saint Augustine, addressing his people, deemed it prudent to lift their thoughts from Stephen the servant to Christ His Master. “Though dead,” said he, “he raises the dead to life, because in reality he is not dead. But as heretofore in his mortal life, so now, too, he acts solely in the name of Christ. All that you see now done by the memory of Stephen, is done in that name alone, that Christ may be exalted, Christ may be adored, Christ may be expected as Judge of the living and the dead.”

Let us conclude with this praise addressed to Saint Stephen a few years later by Basil of Seleucia, which gives so well in a few words the reason of the feast: “There is no place, no territory, no nation, no far-off land, that has not obtained the help of your benefits. There is no one, stranger or citizen, barbarian or Scythian, that does not experience, through your intercession, the greatness of heavenly realities.”

What a precious addition to your history in the sacred Books is furnished us, O Protomartyr, by the story of your invention! We now know who were those “God fearing men who buried Stephen and made great mourning over him.” Gamaliel, the master of the Doctor of the Gentiles, had been before his disciple conquered by our Lord. Inspired by Jesus to whom in dying you commended your soul, He honoured after your death the humble soldier of Christ with the same cares which had been lavished by Joseph of Arimathea, the noble counsellor, on the Man-God, and laid your body in the new tomb prepared for himself. Soon Nicodemus, Joseph’s companion in the pious work of the great Friday, hunted by the Jews in that persecution in which you were the first victim, found refuge near your sacred relics, and dying a holy death was laid to rest beside you. The respected name of Gamaliel prevailed over the angry synagogue. While the family of Annas and Caiphas kept in its hands the priestly power through the precarious favour of Rome, the grandson of Hillel left to his descendants pre-eminence in knowledge, and his eldest line remained for four centuries the depositories of the only moral authority then recognised by the dispersed Israelites. But more fortunate was he in having, by hearing the Apostles and yourself, O Stephen, passed from the science of shadows to the light of the realities, from the Law to the Gospel, from Moses to Him whom Moses announced. More happy than the eldest born, was the beloved son Abibas, baptised with his father at the age of twenty, and who, passing away to God, filled the tomb next to yours with the sweet odour of heavenly purity. How touching was the last will of the illustrious father when, his hour being come, he ordered the grave of Abibas to be opened for himself, that father and son might be seen to be twin brothers born together to the only true light!

The munificence of our Lord had placed you in death, O Stephen, in worthy company. We give thanks to the noble person who showed you hospitality for your last rest, and we are grateful to him for having, at the appointed time, himself broken the silence kept concerning him by the delicate reserve of the Scriptures. Here again we see how the Man-God wills to share His own honours with His chosen ones. Your sepulchre, like His, was glorious. And when it was opened, the earth shook, the bystanders believed that Heaven had come down, the world was delivered from a desolating drought, and amid a thousand evils hope sprang up once more. Now that our West possesses your body and Gamaliel has yielded to Laurence the right of hospitality, rise up once more, O Stephen, and together with the great Roman deacon deliver us from the new barbarians, by converting them, or wiping them off the face of the Earth given by God to His Christ!

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Constantinople, the birthday of St. Hermellus, martyr.

In the East Indies near Persia, the martyrdom of holy monks and other Christians who were put to death after suffering various torments, during the persecution of the Church of God by king Abenner.

At Naples in Campania, St. Aspren, bishop, who was cured of a sickness by the blessed Apostle St. Peter, and after being baptised, was made bishop of that city.

At Autun, the demise of St. Euphronius, bishop and confessor.

At Anagni, St. Peter, bishop, who rested in the Lord after gaining great renown for monastical observance and pastoral vigilance.

At Philippi in Macedonia, St. Lydia, a dealer in purple, who was the first to believe in the Gospel when the blessed Apostle St. Paul preached in that city.

At Beroea in Syria, the holy women Marana and Cyra.

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

Thanks be to God.

2 AUGUST – SAINT STEPHEN I (Pope and Martyr)

Stephen, a Roman and the son of Jovius, was the archdeacon of Rome when Pope Saint Lucius I entrusted him with the care of the Church shortly before his martyrdom in 254 AD in the persecution under Decius. During the interval between the Decian and Valerian persecutions, there sprang a controversy regarding baptism. The Churches of Africa and the East, and of Alexandria to a lesser extent, declared that baptisms performed by heretics were void and could only be valid when performed by duly consecrated clergy in communion with the Church. However, Pope Stephen I was of the view that every baptism performed with the right matter and the right words was effective.

Saints Cyprian of Carthage and Dionysius of Alexandria wrote to Pope Stephen who replied by denouncing Cyprian as a false Christ, a false apostle and a deceitful worker. He broke off communion with all the Churches of the East and of Africa which adhered to the more rigorous practice. Cyprian then held a council at Carthage attended by 71 bishops of Africa, and at it he asserted the independent judgement of the African Churches. Cyprian sent two bishops to Rome with a copy of the decisions of the Carthaginian council, and letters from himself. Stephen would not allow the messengers to enter his presence, and forbade the faithful to show them the smallest hospitality, to receive them into their houses, or wish them God-speed. Cyprian wrote in indignation. He condemned in severe terms the perverseness, obstinacy and contumacy of Stephen. He promulgated, in Latin, a letter of Saint Firmilian, the Bishop of Cappadocian Caesarea, even more unmeasured in its censures. Firmilian denounced the audacity and insolence of Stephen and scoffed at his boasted descent from Saint Peter. He declared that, by his sin, he had excommunicated himself: that he was a schismatic, an apostate from the unity of the Church. Cyprian assembled another council of 87 bishops who reasserted their previous decision, repudiated the assumption by Stephen of the title Bishop of Bishops, and the arbitrary dictation of one bishop to all Christendom.

This happened in 256 AD. In the council were fifteen confessors, some with scars, and maimed for the faith. It is not known what was the end of this dispute. It lasted under the pontificate of Saint Sixtus, the successor of Stephen. The sudden outbreak of persecution under Valerian in 257 AD drew attention from these questions to the more pressing necessities of a time of fiery trial. One of the first victims was Stephen. Soldiers suddenly entered a church while he was saying Mass, but he remained before the altar and concluded the sacred mysteries with intrepidity, and was beheaded on his throne. He was buried in the Catacombs of Saint Callistus.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The commemoration of the illustrious Pope and Martyr Stephen I adds a perfume of antiquity to the holiness of this day dedicated to the honour of a comparatively modern Saint. Stephen’s special glory in the Church is to have been the guardian of the dignity of holy Baptism. Baptism once given can never be repeated, for the character of child of God, which it imprints upon the Christian, is everlasting. And this unspeakable dignity of the first Sacrament in no wise depends upon the disposition or state of the minister conferring it. According to the teaching of Saint Augustine, whether Peter, or Paul, or Judas baptise, it is He upon whom the Divine Dove descended in the Jordan, it is He alone and always that baptises by them in the Holy Ghost. Such is the adorable munificence of our Lord with regard to this indispensable means of salvation, that the very pagan who belongs not to the Church, and the schismatic or heretic separated from her, can administer it with full validity on the one condition of fulfilling the exterior rite in its essence, and of wishing to do by it what the Church does.

In the time of Stephen I this truth was not so universally known as now. Great bishops whose learning and holiness had justly won them the admiration of their age wished to make the converts from various sects pass again through the laver of salvation. But the assistance promised to Peter was not wanting to his successor, and by maintaining the traditional discipline, Rome, through Stephen, saved the faith of the Churches. Let us testify our gratitude to the holy Pontiff for his fidelity in guarding the sacred deposit which is the treasure of all men. And let us beg him to preserve no less effectually, in us also, the nobility and the rights of our holy Baptism.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Nicaea in Bithynia, the martyrdom of St. Theodota with her three sons. The eldest, named Evodius, confessing Christ with confidence, was first beaten with rods, by order of Nicetius, ex-consul of Bithynia, and then the mother, with all her sons, was consumed by fire.

In Africa, St. Rutilius, martyr. He had frequently secured safety from the perils of persecution by flight, and sometimes even by means of money, but at last, being unexpectedly apprehended, he was led to the governor and subjected to many tortures. Afterwards he was cast into the fire and thus merited the glorious crown of martyrdom.

At Padua, St. Maximus, bishop of that city, who ended his blessed life in peace, with a reputation for miracles.

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

Thanks be to God.

2 AUGUST – SAINT ALPHONSUS DE LIGUORI (Confessor and Doctor of the Church)

 

Alphonsus Maria de' Ligouri was born in Marianella near Naples, Italy, on 27 September 1696 to Giuseppe Ligouri, a naval officer and Captain of the Royal Galleys, and his wife Anna Maria Caterina Cavalieri. He was baptised two days later as Alphonsus Maria Antonio Giovanni Damiano Michele Gaspari de' Ligouri. His family was of noble origin.

As a young man he cared for the sick in the public hospitals and devoted his spare time to prayer in churches. In obedience to his father he became a lawyer, studying law at the University of Naples. He graduated with doctorates in both civil and canon law at the age of 16. Alphonsus was successful in his legal career but after losing an important case, and hearing an interior voice saying “leave the world and give yourself to me” he abandoned his profession.

Alphonus renounced his right of inheritance as the oldest son (primogeniture) and became a priest in 1726 at the age of 30. Zealous against vice, he procured the conversions of many sinners. He took particular pity on the poor and those living in the country. In 1732 Alphonsus founded the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer to preach the Gospel to them. To avoid any distractions from this mission he took a perpetual vow never to waste any time. Alphonsus was constant in contemplating the Passion of Christ and the Holy Eucharist and was outstanding in his devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Alphonsus wrote many books of devotion and religious instruction to gain souls for Christ. He consistently refused ecclesiastical honour but was forced by Rome to accept the episcopal chair of Sant'Agata dei Goti in 1762. He was generous to the poor and brought religious sisters back to a more perfect form of life. Serious chronic illnesses forced him to resign his office as bishop and return to his disciples. By May 1775 he was blind, deaf and full of other infirmities.

Alphonsus died on 1 August 1787 at the age of 90. He was beatified in 1816 by Pope Pius VII and canonised in 1839 by Pope Gregory XVI. In 1949 the Redemptorists founded the Alphonsian Academy (Alphonsianum) for the advanced study of Catholic moral theology. It is situated in Rome and in 1960 became part of the Faculty of Theology of the Pontifical Lateran University. Pope Pius IX declared Alphonsus a Doctor of the Universal Church and Pope Pius XII designated him the heavenly patron of all confessors and moralists.

2 AUGUST – TENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

This Sunday is, some years, the second of the dominical series which opened with the feast of Saint Laurence, and took its name (of Post Sancti Laurentii) from the solemnity of the great Deacon-Martyr. It is, also, sometimes called the Sunday of Humility, or, of the Pharisee and Publican, because of the Gospel of the day. The Greeks count it as the tenth of Saint Matthew, and they read on it the episode of the Lunatic, which is given in the 17th Chapter of that Evangelist.

Epistle – 1 Corinthians xii. 2‒11

Brethren, you know that when you were heathens you went to dumb idols, according as you were led. Wherefore, I give you to understand that no man speaking by the Spirit of God says “Anathema” to Jesus. And no man can say “The Lord Jesus,” but by the Holy Ghost. Now there are diversities of graces, but the same Spirit. And there are diversities of ministries but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but the same God, who works all in all. And the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man unto profit. To one indeed, by the Spirit, is given the word of wisdom: and to another, the word of knowledge, according to the same Spirit: To another, faith in the same spirit: to another, the grace of healing in one Spirit: To another the working of miracles: to another, prophecy: to another, the discerning of spirits: to another, diverse kinds of tongues: to another, interpretation of speeches. But all these things, one and the same Spirit works, dividing to everyone according as He will.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The reading of our Epistle shows us that it is speaking of those absolutely gratuitous favours which, at the first commencement of the Church, were more or less enjoyed by every Christian assembly, and since then are imparted to a few privileged souls which, generally speaking though not necessarily, are being guided in the extraordinary paths of mystic Theology. If, in the immense majority of God’s faithful servants, we do not meet with these infused graces of prophecy, of supernatural knowledge, of the gift of tongues, or of miracles properly so called, yet the Lives of the Saints are always the common patrimony of the children of the Church and therefore they should not neglect to provide themselves with the lights needed for understanding and profiting by a reading which is so important and so interesting. In this season of the Liturgical Year which is so specially devoted to the celebration of the mysteries of divine Union, it is very necessary to have certain clear ideas without which we should be in danger of confounding what, in this higher Christian life, is the interior perfection of the soul and her real holiness, with those exterior, and intermittent, and varied phenomena which are but the radiation of the Spirit of love, who is Master to display His own operations in His own divine way.

These are the motives which induced the Church to select for today this passage from the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Corinthians. If we would fully enter into her design, we must not limit our attention to the few lines we have just been reading. The end of the chapter from which they are taken, as likewise the two subsequent chapters, are all one and the same piece of teaching, and must not be separated one from the other (1 Corinthians xii., xiii, xiv.) In this important passage, besides the summary of the principles which are unchangeable, we have also an instructive account of what the Church’s assemblies were in those early times when the omnipotence of the Holy Spirit everywhere opened and made to flow in abundance the double spring of miracle and holiness. The rapid conquest of the world which, from the very commencement was to give evidence to the catholicity of the Church, required a large effusion of power from on high: and in order that the promulgation of the New Testament might be made authoritatively among men, it was necessary that God should give it all possible solemnity and authenticity. And this He did, by accompanying it with signs and wonders, of which He alone could be the author. Hence in those early days the Holy Ghost took not possession of a soul by Baptism, without giving an external sign of His presence in that new Christian — without, that is, one of those manifestations which the Apostle here enumerates. Thus the Witness of the Word (John xv. 26) fulfilled the twofold mission he had received: he sanctified in truth the faithful of Christ (John xvii. 17) and he will convince of sin the world which would not receive the word of the heralds of the Gospel.

Saint Paul (Romans i. 4) mentions three proofs which were held out to the world as a sure guarantee of the divinity of Christ: these were His Resurrection from the grave, the holiness of those who became His disciples, and thirdly the innumerable miracles which accompanied the preaching of the Apostles and the conversion of the Gentiles. As to the first of these proofs, we will have it proposed to our consideration next Sunday. Passing then, to the second — the law given to the world by Jesus of Nazareth was abundantly proved to be of divine origin by the admirable change of this Earth of which, when He was born in it for our salvation, we might say in the language of the Scripture, all flesh had corrupted its way (Genesis vi. 12). For men that knew how to use their reasoning powers, no demonstration could be plainer or more cogent than this, which showed that, from the sinks of corruption, there were everywhere coming forth harvests worthy of Heaven, and that men, who had degraded themselves to the level of the brute by the indulgence of their evil passions, were now changed into angels of Earth by their saintly morals and heavenly aspirations. To change the odour of death into the good odour of Christ (2 Corinthians ii. 14‒16), that is, to live his life as did the Christians — was it not a revealing God to men by showing that the very life of God was lived by men in human flesh? (2 Corinthians iv. 10, 11).

But, for men who seem incapable of reasoning, for men who cannot see beyond the present nor raise themselves above the senses — for so many beings who have become brutalised who, in virtue which scorns to share in their debaucheries, see nothing but a something to stare at and blaspheme (1 Peter iv. 4) — for all these the Holy Spirit had prepared a demonstration which was tangible and visible, and which all could take in —it was that exuberance of supernatural gifts, which were actively at work in every place where there was a church. The gift of Tongues, which had given such power to the preaching of the Apostles on the day of Pentecost (Acts ii. 6‒11), was multiplied with such frequency, when men came near the baptismal font, that the beholders were astonished, or, as the full force of the sacred text gives it, they were stupified (Acts x. 44‒48). It continued to be the sign, the wonder, whose influence on the unbeliever, after first exciting his surprise, went on gradually inclining both his thoughts and his heart towards the word of faith (1 Corinthians xiv. 22). But the work of his conversion received a still greater impulse when he was introduced into the assembly of the men of his own neighbourhood, whom hitherto he had only known in the simple intercourse of every day life. He then found them transformed into prophets who could see into the most hidden recesses of his unbelieving soul. All were his convincers, all were his judges — how was he to resist? No, he fell prostrate on the ground, he adored God, he could not but acknowledge that the Lord was indeed in such an assembly (1 Corinthians xiv. 24, 25).

The Corinthians to whom Saint Paul wrote that Epistle were rich in these spiritual favours. Nothing of this kind of grace was wanting to them, and the Apostle gave thanks to God for His having so abundantly endowed them, for thereby a strong testimony was given to the Christian religion (1 Corinthians i. 4‒7). But it would have been a great mistake if from this profusion bestowed on them by the Holy Spirit, a man had concluded that the Corinthians were perfect. Jealousies, vanity, obstinacy and other miseries earned for them the name of carnal, which was given to them by the same divine Spirit, and made the Apostle tell them that he was compelled to treat them as children incapable of receiving anything like sublime teaching (1 Corinthians ii. 1‒3). These privileged receivers of gratuitous graces pointed out very clearly, therefore, the difference between the value the Christian should attach to these exceptionally great but perhaps, to the possessor’s own soul, unproductive favours and between the value he should set on justifying and sanctifying grace which makes the soul pleasing to God.

This second — the regularly appointed result of the Sacraments which were instituted by our Lord’s munificence for the use of all men — this justifying, this sanctifying, grace is the necessary basis of salvation. It is also the one sole measure of future glory, for its development and increase depend on the merit of each individual possessor. Gratuitous Grace, on the contrary, is irregular and spontaneous both in its origin and its effects, and is quite independent of the recipient, be his dispositions or merits what they may. Like the authority given to one over the souls of others — like those several ministries mentioned in our Epistle — this Gratuitous Grace has for its aim, not so much the advantage of him who receives it, as the advantage of his fellow-men. And this aim is realised independently of the virtue or the imperfection of the one whom God has selected as His instrument. So that miracles or prophecy do not necessarily presuppose a certain amount of holiness in the thaumaturgus or the prophet. We have a proof of it in our Corinthians, and a still stronger in Balaam and Judas. God, who had His own designs which were not to be frustrated by their faults or sins, left them in possession of His own gifts just as He does in the Priest who may, perhaps, be anything but what he should be. and who nevertheless validly makes use of faculties and powers more divine than any of those others. We have it from our divine Master Himself: “Many,” says He, will say that day (of judgment) ‘Lord! Lord! Have we not prophesied in your name, and, in your name, cast out devils, and done many wonderful works in your name?’ And then will I profess to them, “I never knew you. Depart from me, you that work iniquity!” (Matthew vii. 22, 23).

In these days when such manifestations of supernatural power are no longer needed for the promulgation of the Gospel, and are therefore less frequent, it is generally the case that when they are found in a Christian they are an indication of a real and sanctifying Union existing between him and the Spirit of love. That Holy Spirit, who raises such a Christian above the ordinary paths, takes pleasure in His own divine work, and wishes to have it attract the attention either of all the faithful, or at least of some privileged souls who, being moved by these extraordinary signs, give thanks to God for the favours He has bestowed on that soul. And yet, even in such case it would be a mistake to measure the holiness of that favoured soul by the number or greatness of such exterior gifts. The development of charity by the exercise of the several virtues is the only thing that makes men be Saints. Divine Union, whether it be that degree of it which is attainable by all, or those grand heights of Mystic Theology which are reached by a few privileged ones — divine Union does not in any way depend on those brilliant phenomena. These, when they are bestowed on a servant of God, do not generally wait for his reaching perfection in divine love, though it is love alone will give him, if he be faithful, the perfection of true holiness.

The practical conclusion we are to draw from all this, is, what the Apostle makes the summary of his teaching on this subject: Have a great esteem for all these gifts. Look on them as the work of the Holy Ghost who thereby bestows manifold degrees of adornment on the whole body of the Church (1 Corinthians xii. 11‒30). Do not despise any of these (1 Corinthians xiv. 39), but when you see or hear of any of them count those as the most precious (1 Corinthians xii. 31) which produce most edification in the Church, and in souls (1 Corinthians xiv. 12). Let us, above all, hearken to what Saint Paul adds: “I have a way to show you more excellent than all these! (1 Corinthians xii. 31). If I should speak with the tongues of men and of angels; if I should have prophecy, and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge; if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains; if I have not charity, I am nothing, it profits me nothing. Prophecies will be made void, tongues will cease, knowledge will be destroyed” and be substituted by the vision beatific. But Charity will never fail, will never cease. Of all things, Charity is the greatest (1 Corinthians xiii. 1‒13).

Gospel – Luke xviii. 9‒14

At that time Jesus spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves as just and despised others: “Two men went up into the temple to pray: the one a Pharisee and the other a publican. The Pharisee standing, prayed thus with himself: ‘O God, I give you thanks that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, as also is this publican. I fast twice in a week: I give tithes of all that I possess.’ And the publican, standing afar off, would not so much as lift up his eyes towards heaven; but struck his breast, saying: ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’ I say to you, this man went down into his house justified rather than the other: because every one that exalts himself will be humbled: and he that humbles himself will be exalted.”

Praise be to you, O Christ.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Commenting this passage of Saint Luke, Venerable Bede thus explains the mystery: “The Pharisee is the Jewish people, who boasts of the merits he had acquired to himself by observing the precepts of the law. The Publican is the Gentile who, being far off from God, confesses his sins. The Pharisee, by reason of his pride, has to depart in humiliation. The Publican, by his lamenting his miseries, merited to draw near to God, that is, to be exalted. It is of these two people, and of every man, who is proud or humble, that it is written: ‘The heart of a man is exalted before destruction, and it is humbled before he be glorified” (Proverbs xviii. 12).

In the whole Gospel, then, there was no teaching more appropriate, as a sequel to the history of Jerusalem’s fall. The children of the Church who in her early years saw her humbled in Sion and persecuted by the insulting arrogance of the Synagogue, now quite understand that word of the Wise Man: ‘Better is it to be humbled with the meek, than to divide spoils with the proud!’ (Proverbs xvi. 19). According to another Proverb, the tongue of the Jew — that tongue which abused the Publican and ran down the poor Gentile — is become, in his mouth, as a rod of pride (Proverbs xiv. 3), a rod which, in time, struck himself by bringing on his own destruction. But while adoring the justice of God’s vengeance and giving praise to His mercy, the Gentiles must take care not to go into the path in which was lost the unhappy people, whose place they now occupy. Israel’s offence, says Saint Paul, has brought about the salvation of the Gentiles. But his pride would be also their ruin, and whereas Israel is assured, by prophecy, of a return to God’s favour when the end of the world will be approaching (Romans xi. 25‒27), there is no such promise of a second call of mercy to the Gentiles should they ever apostatise after their baptism. If, at present, the power of Eternal Wisdom enables the Gentiles to produce fruits of glory and honour (Ecclesiasticus xxiv. 23), let them never forget how once they were vile barren trees: then humility, which alone can keep them right, as formerly it alone drew on them the eye of God’s mercy, humility will be an easy duty and, at the same time, they will understand the regard they should always entertain for the people of Israel in spite of all his sins.

For, at the time that the original defect of their birth made the Gentiles be as so many wild olive trees producing nothing but worthless fruits, the good, the genuine, the natural olive tree, through whose branches flowed the sap of grace, was growing and flourishing, sucking sanctification into its branches from the holy root of the Patriarchs, blessed of God (Romans xi. 16‒24). “We must remember that this tree of salvation is ever the same. Some of its branches fell off, it is true, and others were substituted. But this accession of the Gentiles, who were permitted by grace to graft their branches into the holy stock — this accession effected no change, either in the stock, or in its root. The God of the Gentiles is not another, but the same, as the God of Isaac and Jacob. The heavenly olive tree is one, and only one, and its roots rest in Abraham’s bosom: it is from the faith of this the just man by excellence (Romans iv. 11‒18) it is from the blessing promised to him (Genesis xii. 3) and to his divine Bud (Genesis xii. 18), the blessing which was to be imparted to all the nations of the earth, that flows the life-giving and rich sap which will transform the Gentile world in all future ages. When, therefore, Christian nations are boasting of their origin and descent, let them not forget the one which is above all the rest. The founders of earthly empires are not, in God’s way of counting, the true fathers of the people of those empires: in the order of supernatural, that is, of our best, interest, Abraham the Hebrew (Genesis xiv. 13), he that went forth from Chaldea at the call of God (Genesis xii. 1‒4) — he, by the fecundity of his faith is the truest father of nations (Genesis xvii. 4‒7).

Now we can understand those words of the Apostle: “Boast not, you wild olive tree that, contrary to nature, was grafted into the good olive tree, boast not against the original branches. But if you are tempted to boast, remember, you bear not the root but the root bears you. Therefore, be not high-minded, but fear” (Romans xi. 18, 20, 24). Humility, which produces within us this salutary fear, is the virtue that makes man know his right place, with regard both to God and his fellow-men. It rests on the deep-rooted conviction, put into our hearts by grace, of how God is everything in man, and of how we, by nature, are nothingness, no, less than nothingness, because we have degraded ourselves by sin. Reason is able, of herself alone, to convince anyone who takes the trouble to reflect, of the nothingness of a creature. But such conviction, if it remain a mere theoretical conclusion, is not Humility: it is a conviction which forces itself on the devil in Hell, whose vexation at such a truth is the chief source of the rage of that leader of the proud. As faith, which reveals to us what God is in the supernatural order, does not come from mere reason, nor remain confined to the intellect alone, so neither does humility, which teaches us what we ourselves are: that it may be true real virtue it must derive its light from above, and in the Holy Spirit, must move our will also. At the same time that this Holy Spirit fills our souls with the knowledge of their littleness and misery, he also sweetly leads them to the acceptance and love of this truth, which reason, if left entirely to herself, would be tempted to look on as a disagreeable thought.

And when this holy Spirit of truth (John xiv. 17) this divine witness of hearts (Wisdom i. 6) takes possession of a soul, what an incomparably stronger light is there in the humility which He imparts, than in that which mere human reason forces on a man! We are bewildered at seeing to what lengths this sentiment of their own misery led the Saints: it made them deem themselves inferior to every one. It drove them to act and speak in a way which in our flippant judgement, out-stepped the bounds of both truth and justice! But the Holy Ghost who guided and ruled them passed a very different judgement. And it is precisely because of His being the Spirit of all truth and all justice — in other words, because of His being the Sanctifying Spirit — that, as He willed to raise them to extraordinary holiness, He therefore gave them an extraordinary clear-sightedness, both as to what they themselves were, and what God is. Satan, the spirit of wickedness, makes his slaves act just the opposite to the divine way. The way he makes them take is the one he took for himself from the very beginning, and which our Lord thus expresses: “He stood not in the truth” (John viii. 44), he aimed at “being like the Most High” (Isaias xiv. 4). This pride of his succeeded in fixing him, for all eternity, in the hell of absurdity and lie. Therefore, Humility is Truth and as that same Jesus says: “The Truth will make you free” (John viii. 32, 34) by liberating us from the tyranny of the father of lies (John viii. 44) and then having made us free, it makes us holy. It sanctifies us (John xvii. 17) by uniting us to God, who is living and substantial Truth.

In proportion as the human creature advances in the paths of divine Union, and draws nearer to this infinite ALL, this One who alone is by essence (Exodus iii. 14) — man, far from losing any of his own borrowed being, receives a marvellous increase of both light and heat. It would be more correct, perhaps, to say that, as by drawing nearer to God, he lives, not he, but Christ lives in him (Galatians ii. 20), so, together with that life of his own self, he is entirely losing the factitious light which used to accompany that diminished life of his and which, when he was far removed from the divine centre of light, may have seemed to him grand because it came from no source but his own poor Self! Yes, when he is in close union with the divine Light, all that flicker of his own is lost. And what a happy loss when it gives him such a gain! The stars which gravitate round the sun get more brilliant with his light, the nearer they approach him till, at last, they quite disappear under the immediate action of their glorious centre, whereas the brightness they have from him seems less dependent when in the isolation produced by distance. It seems all the more to be their own, the further they are from him.

There are men who, like Satan, have done all in their power to throw themselves out of the orbit of the divine sun. Rather than acknowledge that they owe all they have to the Most High God, they would sink back again into nothingness, if they could. To the heavenly treasures which the common Father opens out to all who own themselves to be

His children, they prefer the pleasure of keeping to natural good things, for then, so they talk, they owe what they get to their own cleverness and exertions. They are foolish men not to understand that, do what they please, they owe everything they have or get to this their forgotten God (1 Corinthians iv. 7). They are weak sickly minds, taking for principles which they may be proud of, these vapours of conceit in which their disordered brain finds delight. Their high-mindedness is but ignominy. Their independence leads but to slavery, for, though refusing to have God as their Father, they must by necessity have Him as their Master. And thus, not being His children, they must be His slaves. As slaves, they keep to the vile food which they themselves preferred to the pure delights with which Wisdom inebriates them that follow her. As slaves, they have acquired the right to the scourge and the fetter. They chose to be satisfied with what they had, and would have neither the throne that was prepared for them (Wisdom vi. 22), nor the nuptial robe (Ecclesiasticus vi. 32). Let them, if they will, prefer their prison and there deck themselves in the finery which moths will be soon making their food! But, during these short years of theirs, they are branding their bodies with a deeper slavery than ever red-hot iron stamped on vilest bondsman. All this comes because, with all the empty philosophy which was their boast, they would not listen to the Christian teaching — that real greatness consists in the Truth, and that Humility alone leads to it.

Not only does man not unman himself by humbling himself — for he thereby is but believing himself to be what he really is — but, according to the Gospel expression, the degree of that voluntary abasement is the measure of God’s exaltation of him. The Holy Ghost is, beyond measure, liberal in bestowing His gifts on one who is sure to refer all the glory of them to the divine Giver. It is to the little that the Lord of Heaven and Earth makes revelations which He hides from the proudly wise and prudent (Luke x. 21). More correctly, the truly wise, the perfect ones of whom Saint Paul speaks, who alone understand the mysteries of God’s infinite love (1 Corinthians ii. 6‒16) of which they have had experience even in this present life — are they not those little ones whom divine Wisdom calls to His banquet (Proverbs ix. 4), who are nothing in their own eyes (Wisdom ix. 5), 1 but whose confiding simplicity ravishes his heart (Wisdom viii.) and who find that all good things come to them together with this divine visitor? (Wisdom vii. 11). Verily, it is in them that among all the children of men He finds His delights (Proverbs viii. 31). It is just what the disciples could not understand when, after the words of our Lord which are given in today’s Gospel, they insisted, as Saint Luke tells us, on keeping back the little ones who wanted to get too near Him. But this Jesus of ours, this Wisdom Incarnate insisted on their being brought to Him, saying very much the same as He had already done in the Old Testament pages: “Suffer little children to come to me: do not forbid them! for, of such is the kingdom of God, and of them that are like them. Amen say to you: whoever will not receive the kingdom of God as a child, will not enter into it! (Luke xviii. 15‒17)

In that Heaven, that Kingdom of God, the humility of the Saints is far greater than it was while they were here on Earth because they now see the realities which then they could only faintly take in. Their happiness, yonder above, is to be gazing on and adoring that altitude of God of which they will never have an adequate knowledge, and the more they look up at that infinite perfection, the deeper do they plunge into their own original nothingness. Let us get these great truths well into us, and we will have no difficulty in understanding how it was that the greatest Saints were the humblest creatures here below, and how the same beautiful fact is still one great charm of Heaven. it must be so, for the light of the elect is in proportion to their glory. What, then, must all this exquisite truth be when we apply it to the great Mother of God? The nearest to the throne of her divine Son, she is precisely what she was in Nazareth (Luke i. 48), that is, she is the humblest of all creatures, because she is the most enlightened of all, and therefore understands better than even the Seraphim and Cherubim, the greatness of God and the nothingness of creatures.