13 AUGUST – SAINTS HIPPOLYTUS AND CASSIAN (Martyrs)

Hippolytus was baptised by the deacon Saint Lawrence. He was tried before Valerian and sentenced to be torn to pieces by wild horses, as in the myth of his namesake, the son Theseus. After Hippolytus, his nurse Concordia and nineteen other Christians were beheaded outside the Porta Tiburtina and were buried in the cemetery of Saint Lawrence. Cassian, a schoolmaster, was denounced as a Christian and condemned by Julian the Apostate to die at the hands of his pupils. They stabbed him to death with their styli. He died at Imola in central Italy in 363 AD.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Not far from the sepulchre of Saint Laurence, on the opposite side of the Via Tiburtina, lies the tomb of Saint Hippolytus, one of the sanctuaries most dear to the Christians in the days of triumph. Prudentius has described the magnificence of the crypt, and the immense concourse attracted to it each year on the Ides of August. Who was this Saint? Of what rank and manner of life? What facts of his history are there to be told, beyond that of his having given his blood for Christ? All these questions have in modern times become the subject of numerous and learned works. He was a martyr, and that is nobility enough to make him glorious in our eyes. Let us honour him then, and together with him another soldier of Christ, Cassian of Imola, whom the Church offers to our homage at the same time. Hippolytus was dragged by wild horses over rocks and briars till his body was all torn: Cassian, who was a schoolmaster, was delivered by the judge to the children he had taught, and died of the thousands of wounds inflicted by their styles. The prince of Christian poets has sung of him as of Hippolytus, describing his combat and his tomb.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Burgos in Spain, the Saints Centolla and Helena, martyrs.

At Constantinople, St. Maximus, a monk, distinguished for learning and for zeal for Catholic truth. Combating valiantly the Monothelites, he had his hands and tongue torn from him by the heretical emperor Constans, and was banished to Chersonesus, where he breathed his last. At this time, two of his disciples, both called Anastasius, and many others endured diverse torments and the hardships of exile.

In Germany, St. Wigbert, priest and confessor.

At Rome, St. John Berchmans, a scholastic of the Society of Jesus, illustrious for his innocence and for his fidelity to the rules of the religious life. He was canonised by Pope Leo XIII.

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

Thanks be to God.

12 AUGUST – SAINT CLARE (Virgin)

Chiara Offreduccio was born in Assisi in 1194 to Favorino Scifi, the Count of Sasso-Rosso who belonged to an ancient Roman family, and Blessed Ortolana who belonged to the noble family of Fiumi. In 1212, at the age of 18, Clare embraced a life of poverty and austerity, joining an order of Benedictine female religious. She was soon joined at the convent of Saint Damian by her sister Agnes, her mother, an aunt and a niece. With Saint Francis who had consecrated her to God, Clare created the Second Order of Saint Francis, the Poor Ladies or Sisters of Saint Clare, who she governed for 42 years with care and prudence, insisting until the end on the full observance of the Rule.

Her own life was a lesson and an example to others, showing all how to live. She subdued her body in order to grow strong in spirit. Her bed was the bare ground or, at times, a few twigs, and for a pillow she used a piece of hardwood. Her dress was a single tunic and a mantle of poor coarse stuff, and she often wore a rough hair-shirt next to her skin. So great was her abstinence that for a long time she took absolutely no bodily nourishment for three days of the week, and on the remaining days restricted herself to so small a quantity of food that the other religious wondered how she was able to live. Before her health gave way, it was her custom to keep two Lents in the year, fasting on bread and water. Moreover, she devoted herself to watching and prayer, and in these exercises especially she would spend whole days and nights. She suffered from frequent and long illnesses, but when she was unable to leave her bed in order to work she would make her sisters raise and prop her up in a sitting position, so that she could work with her hands and thus not be idle even in sickness. She had a very great love of poverty, never deviating from it on account of any necessity, and she firmly refused the possessions offered by Pope Gregory IX for the support of the sisters.

The greatness of Clare’s sanctity was manifested by many different miracles. She restored the power of speech to one of the sisters of her monastery, to another the power of hearing. She healed one of a fever, one of dropsy, one of an ulcer, and many others of various maladies. She cured of insanity a brother of the Order of Friars Minor. Once when all the oil in the monastery was spent, Clare took a vessel and washed it, and it was found filled with oil by the loving kindness of God. She multiplied half a loaf so that it sufficed for 50 sisters. When the Saracens attacked Assisi and attempted to break into Clare’s monastery, though sick at the time, she had herself carried to the gate, and also the vessel which contained the most Holy Eucharist, and there she prayed, saying: “O Lord, deliver not to beasts the souls of them that praise you, but preserve your handmaids whom you have redeemed with your Precious Blood.” Whereupon a voice was heard saying: “I will always preserve you.” Some of the Saracens fled and others who had already scaled the walls were struck blind and fell down headlong.

Clare survived Saint Francis. When she was dying she was visited by a white-robed multitude of blessed virgins, among whom was one nobler and more resplendent than the rest. Having received the Holy Eucharist and a Plenary Indulgence from Pope Innocent IV, she died on the day before the Ides of August in 1253. After her death she became celebrated by numbers of miracles, and Pope Alexander IV enrolled her among the holy virgins in 1255.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The same year in which Saint Dominic, before making any project with regard to his sons, founded the first establishment of the Sisters of his Order, the companion destined for him by Heaven received his mission from the Crucifix in the church of Saint Damian in these words: “Go, Francis, repair my house which is falling into ruin.” The new patriarch inaugurated his work, as Dominic had done, by preparing a dwelling for his future daughters whose sacrifice might obtain every grace for the great Order he was about to found. The house of the Poor Ladies occupied the thoughts of the Seraph of Assisi even before Santa Maria della Portiuncula, the cradle of the Friars Minor. Thus, for a second time this month, Eternal Wisdom shows us that the fruit of salvation, though it may seem to proceed from the word and from action, springs first from silent contemplation.

Clare was to Francis the help like himself, who begot to the Lord that multitude of heroic virgins and illustrious penitents soon reckoned by the Order in all lands, coming from the humblest condition and from the steps of the throne. In the new chivalry of Christ, Poverty, the chosen Lady of Saint Francis, was to be the queen also of her whom God had given him as a rival and a daughter. Following to the utmost limits the Man-God humbled and stripped of all things for us, she nevertheless felt that she and her sisters were already queens in the kingdom of Heaven: “In the little nest of poverty,” she used lovingly to say, “what jewel could the bride esteem so much as conformity with a God possessing nothing, become a little one whom the poorest of mothers wrapped in humble swathing bands and laid in a narrow crib?” And she bravely defended against the highest authorities the privilege of absolute poverty which the great Pope Innocent III feared to grant. Its definitive confirmation obtained two days before the Saint’s death came as the long-desired reward of forty years of prayer and suffering for the Church of God.

This noble daughter of Assisi had justified the prophecy by which 60 years previously her mother Hortulana had learnt that the child would enlighten the world. The choice of the name given her at her birth had been well inspired. “Oh how powerful was the virgin’s light,” said the sovereign Pontiff in the Bull of her Canonisation, “how penetrating were her rays! She hid herself in the depth of the cloister, and her brightness transpiring filled the house of God.” From her poor solitude which she never quitted, the very name of Clare seemed to carry grace and light everywhere, and made far-off cities yield fruit to God and to her father, Saint Francis.

Embracing the whole world where her virginal family was being multiplied, her motherly heart overflowed with affection for the daughters she had never seen. Let those who think that austerity embraced for God’s sake dries up the soul read these lines from her correspondence with Blessed Agnes of Bohemia. Agnes, daughter of Ottacar I, had rejected the offer of an imperial marriage to take the religious Habit, and was renewing at Prague the wonders of Saint Damian’s. “O my mother and my daughter,” said our Saint, “if I have not written to you as often as my soul and yours would wish, be not surprised: as your mother’s heart loved you, so do I cherish you. But messengers are scarce, and the roads full of danger. As an opportunity offers today, I am full of gladness, and I rejoice with you in the joy of the Holy Ghost. As the first Agnes united herself to the immaculate Lamb, so it is given to you, O fortunate one, to enjoy this union (the wonder of Heaven) with Him, the desire of whom ravishes every soul, whose goodness is all sweetness, whose vision is beatitude, who is the light of the eternal light, the mirror without spot! Look at yourself in this mirror, O queen! O bride! Unceasingly by its reflection enhance your charms. Without and within adorn yourself with virtues. Clothe yourself as beseems the daughter and the spouse of the supreme King. O beloved, with your eyes on this mirror, what delight it will be given you to enjoy in the divine grace!.. Remember, however, your poor Mother, and know that for my part your blessed memory is forever engraved on my heart.”

Not only did the Franciscan family benefit by a charity which extended to all the worthy interests of this world: Assisi, delivered from the lieutenants of the excommunicated Frederick II and from the Saracen horde in his pay, understood how a holy woman is a safeguard to her earthly city. But our Lord loved especially to make the princes of holy Church and the Vicar of Christ experience the humble power, the mysterious ascendency, with which He had endowed His chosen one. Saint Francis himself, the first of all, had in one of those critical moments known to the Saints, sought from her direction and light for his seraphic soul. From the ancients of Israel there came to this virgin not yet 30 years old such messages as this: “To his very dear Sister in Jesus Christ, to His mother, the Lady Clare handmaid of Christ, Hugolin of Ostia, unworthy bishop and sinner. Ever since the hour when I had to deprive myself of your holy conversation, to snatch myself from that heavenly joy, such bitterness of heart causes my tears to flow that if I did not find at the feet of Jesus the consolation which His love never refuses, my mind would fail and my soul would melt away. Where is the glorious joy of that Easter spent in your company and that of the other handmaids of Christ?.. I knew that I was a sinner, but at the remembrance of your super-eminent virtue, my misery overpowers me and I believe myself unworthy ever to enjoy again that conversation of the Saints, unless your tears and prayers obtain pardon for my sins. I put my soul, then, into your hands. To you I entrust my mind that you may answer for me on the day of judgement. The Lord Pope will soon be going to Assisi. O that I may accompany him and see you once more! Salute my sister Agnes (i.e. Saint Clare’s own sister and first daughter in God). Salute all your sisters in Christ.”

The great Cardinal Hugolin, though more than 80 years of age, became soon after Gregory IX. During his 14 years pontificate, which was one of the most brilliant as well as most laborious of the thirteenth century, he was always soliciting Clare’s interest in the perils of the Church, and the immense cares which threatened to crush his weakness. For, says the contemporaneous historian of our Saint: “He knew very well what love can do, and that virgins have free access to the sacred court: for what could the King of Heaven refuse to those to whom He has given Himself?” At length her exile, which had been prolonged 27 years after the death of Francis, was about to close. Her daughters beheld wings of fire over her head and covering her shoulders, indicating that she too had reached seraphic perfection. On hearing that a loss which so concerned the whole Church was imminent, Pope Innocent IV came from Perugia with the Cardinals of his suite. He imposed a last trial on the Saint’s humility by commanding her to bless, in his presence, the bread which had been presented for the blessing of the sovereign Pontiff. Heaven approved the invitation of the Pontiff and the obedience of the Saint, for no sooner had the virgin blessed the loaves than each was found to be marked with a cross. A prediction that Clare was not to die without receiving a visit from the Lord surrounded by His disciples was now fulfilled. The Vicar of Jesus Christ presided at the solemn funeral rites paid by Assisi to her who was its second glory before God and men. When they were beginning the usual chants for the dead, Innocent would have had them substitute the Office for holy Virgins, but on being advised that such a canonisation, before the body was interred, would be considered premature, the Pontiff allowed them to continue the accustomed chants. The insertion, however, of the Virgin’s name in the catalogue of the Saints was only deferred for two years.

O CLARE, the reflection of the Spouse which adorns the Church in this world no longer suffices you. You now behold the light with open face. The brightness of the Lord plays with delight in the pure crystal of your soul, increasing the happiness of Heaven and giving joy this day to our valley of exile. Heavenly beacon, with your gentle shining enlighten our darkness. May we, like you, by purity of heart, by uprightness of thought, by simplicity of gaze, fix on ourselves the divine ray which flickers in a wavering soul, is dimmed by our waywardness, is interrupted or put out by a double life divided between God and the world. Your life, O Virgin, was never thus divided. The most high poverty which was your mistress and guide preserved your mind from that bewitching of vanity which takes off the bloom of all true goods for us mortals. Detachment from all passing things kept your eye fixed on eternal realities. It opened your soul to that seraphic ardour in which you emulated your father Francis. Like the Seraphim, whose gaze is ever fixed on God, you had immense influence over the Earth, and Saint Damian’s, during your lifetime, was a source of strength to the world. Deign to continue giving us your aid. Multiply your daughters. Keep them faithful in following their Mother’s example, so as to be a strong support to the Church. May the various branches of the Franciscan family be ever fostered by your rays, and may all Religious Orders be enlightened by your gentle brightness. Shine on us all, O Clare, and show us the worth of this transitory life and of that which never ends.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYOLOGY:

At Catania in Sicily, the birthday of St. Euplius, deacon, under the emperors Diocletian and Maximian. He was a long time tortured for the confession of the Lord, and finally obtained the palm of martyrdom by being put to the sword.

At Augsburg, St. Hilaria, mother of the blessed martyr Afra. Because she watched at the sepulchre of her daughter, she was cast into the fire for the faith of Christ, together with her maid-servants Digna, Euprepia and Eunomia.

On the same day there suffered also in that city Quiriacus, Largius, Crescentian, Nimmia and Juliana, with twenty others.

In Syria, the holy martyrs Macarius and Julian.

At Nicomedia, the holy martyrs, the count Anicetus and his brother Photinus, with many others, under the emperor Diocletian.

At Faleria in Tuscany, the Saints Gracilian, and Felicissima, virgin, who, for the confession of the faith, had their mouths bruised with stones, and being afterwards struck with the sword, received the palm of martyrdom.

The same day, the holy martyrs Porcarius, abbot of the monastery of Lerins, and five hundred monks, who were slain for the Catholic faith by barbarians, and were thus crowned with martyrdom.

At Milan, the demise of St. Eusebius, bishop and confessor.

At Brescia, St. Herculanus, bishop.

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

Thanks be to God.

11 AUGUST – SAINTS TIBERTIUS AND SUSANNA (Martyrs)

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Laurence is followed today by the son of Chromatius, prefect of Rome, Tiburtius, who also suffered on burning coals for the confession of his faith. Though forty years intervened between the two martyrdoms, it was the same Holy Spirit that animated these witnesses of Christ and suggested to them the same answer to their executioners. Tiburtius, walking on the fire, cried out: “Learn that the God of the Christians is the only God, for these hot coals seem flowers to me.”

Equally near to the great Archdeacon stands an illustrious virgin, so bright herself as not to be eclipsed by him. A relative of both the Emperor Diocletian and the holy Pope Caius, Susanna, it is said, one day beheld the imperial crown at her feet. But she obtained a far greater nobility for, by preferring the wreath of virginity, she won at the same time the palm of martyrdom.

Now, as Saint Leo remarks, on the glorious solemnity whose Octave we are keeping, if no one is good for himself alone, if the favours of Divine Wisdom profit not only the recipient, then no one is more wise than the martyr, no eloquence can instruct the people so well as his. It is by this excellent manner of teaching that, as the Church tells us today, Laurence enlightened the whole world with the light of his fire, and by the flames which he endured he warmed the hearts of all Christians. By the example of his martyrdom faith is kindled and devotion fostered in our souls. “The persecutor lays no hot coals for me, but he sets me on fire with desire of my Saviour.” If, moreover, and it is not mere theory to repeat it in our days, if, as Saint Augustine remarks, “circumstances place a man in the alternative of transgressing a divine precept or losing his life, he too must know how to die for the love of God, rather than live at enmity with Him.” Morality does not change, neither does the justice of God, who in all ages rewards the faithful, as in all ages He chastises cowards.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Comana in Pontus, St. Alexander, bishop, surnamed Carbonarius, who added to a consummate knowledge of philosophy an eminent degree of Christian humility. He was promoted to the See of that church by St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, and became illustrious, not only by preaching, but also by suffering martyrdom by fire.

The same day, the martyrdom of St. Rufinus, bishop of the Marsi, and his companions, under the emperor Maximinus.

At Evreux in France, St. Taurinus, bishop. Being made bishop of that city by the blessed Pope Clement, he propagated the Christian faith by the preaching of the Gospel, and the many labours he sustained for it. Celebrated for glorious miracles, he slept in the Lord.

At Cambrai in France, St. Gaugericus, bishop and confessor.

In the province of Valeria, St. Equitius, abbot, whose sanctity was attested by Pope St. Gregory.

At Todi, St. Digna, virgin.

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

Thanks be to God.

10 AUGUST – SAINT LAWRENCE (Martyr)

Lawrence was born circa 225 AD in Spain. While studying he met the future Pope Sixtus II who was then a teacher. When Sixtus became Pope, Lawrence became one of the seven deacons of Rome. In 258 AD Valerian ordered all clergy to be put to death immediately. Pope Sixtus II was captured in the catacombs of Saint Callixtus while celebrating the Eucharist and was executed forthwith. The Prefect of Rome ordered Lawrence to surrender the treasures of the Church. In answer Lawrence collected all the blind, lame, widows, orphans and aged, who were supported by the Church in Rome, and presented them to the Prefect, as being, on account of their prayers, the greatest of the treasures of the Church. After much suffering from scourging with whips set with iron or lead from hot metal plates, he was slowly burnt to death on a gridiron. But to the end Lawrence showed a sense of humour, reputedly telling his executioners, “I’m done on this side. Turn me over.” Saint Lawrence’s remains were buried by blessed Hippolytus (a Christian converted by Saint Lawrence) and the priest Justin in the cemetery of Cyriaca in the Veran field.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

“Once the mother of false gods, but now the bride of Christ, O Rome, it is through Laurence you are victorious! You had conquered haughty monarchs and subjected nations to your empire, but though you had overcome barbarism, your glory was incomplete till you had vanquished the unclean idols. This was Laurence’s victory, a combat bloody yet not tumultuous like those of Camillus or of Caesar. It was the contest of faith in which self is immolated and death is overcome by death. What words, what praises suffice to celebrate such a death? How can I worthily sing so great a martyrdom.” Thus opens the sublime poem of Prudentius composed little more than a century after the Saint’s martyrdom. In this work the poet has preserved to us the traditions existing in his own day by which the name of the Roman deacon was rendered so illustrious. About the same time Saint Ambrose, with his irresistible eloquence, described the meeting of Sixtus and his deacon on the way to martyrdom.

But, before both Ambrose and Prudentius, Pope Saint Damasus chronicled the victory of Laurence’s faith in his majestic monumental inscriptions which have such a ring of the days of triumph. Rome was lavish in her demonstrations of honour towards the champion who had prayed for her deliverance on his red-hot gridiron. She inserted his name in the Canon of the Mass, and moreover celebrated the anniversary of his birth to Heaven with as much solemnity as those of the glorious Apostles, her founders, and with the same privileges of a Vigil and an Octave. She has been dyed with the blood of many other witnesses of Christ, yet, as though Laurence had a special claim on her gratitude, every spot connected with him has been honoured with a church. Among all these sanctuaries dedicated to him, the one which contains the martyr’s body ranks next after the churches of Saint John Lateran, Saint Mary’s on the Esquiline, Saint Peter’s on the Vatican, and Saint Paul’s on the Via Ostiensis. Saint Laurence outside the Walls completes the number of the five great basilicas that form the appendage and exclusive possession of the Roman Pontiff. They represent the patriarchates of Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople and Jerusalem which divide the world between them, and express the universal and immediate jurisdiction of the Bishops of Rome over all the churches. Thus, through Laurence the Eternal City is completed, and is shown to be the centre of the world and the source of every grace.

Just as Peter and Paul are the riches, not of Rome alone, but of the whole world, so Laurence is called the honour of the world, for he, as it were, personified the courage of martyrdom. At the beginning of this month we saw Stephen himself come to blend his dignity of Protomartyr with the glory of Sixtus II’s deacon by sharing his tomb. In Laurence it seemed that both the struggle and the victory of martyrdom reached their highest point. Persecution, it is true, was renewed during the next half century and made many victims, yet his triumph was considered as the death-blow to paganism.

“The devil,” says Prudentius, “struggled fiercely with God’s witness, but he was himself wounded and prostrated forever. The death of Christ’s martyr gave the death-blow to the worship of idols, and from that day Vesta was powerless to prevent her temple from being deserted. All these Roman citizens brought up in the superstitions taught by Numa hasten, O Christ, to your courts, singing hymns to your martyr. Illustrious senators, flamens and priests of Lupercus venerate the tombs of Apostles and Saints. We see patricians and matrons of the noblest families vowing to God the children in whom their hopes are centred. The Pontiff of the idols whose brow but yesterday was bound with sacred fillet, now signs himself with the cross, and the Vestal Virgin Claudia visits your sanctuary, O Laurence.”

It need not surprise us that this day’s solemnity carries its triumphant joy from the city of the Seven Hills to the entire universe. “As it is impossible for Rome to be concealed,” says Saint Augustine, “so it is equally impossible to hide Laurence’s crown.” Everywhere, in both East and West, churches were built in his honour and, in return, as the Bishop of Hippo testifies, “the favours he conferred were innumerable and prove the greatness of his power with God. Who has ever prayed to him and has not been graciously heard?” Let us then conclude with Saint Maxinius of Turin that “in the devotion with which the triumph of Saint Laurence is being celebrated throughout the entire world, we must recognise that it is both holy and pleasing to God to honour, with all the fervour of our souls, the birth to Heaven of the martyr who by his radiant flames has spread the glory of his victory over the whole Church. Because of the spotless purity of soul which made him a true Levite, and because of that fullness of faith which earned him the martyr’s palm, it is fitting that we should honour him almost equally with the Apostles.”

“Laurence has entered the lists as a martyr, and has confessed the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Such is the Antiphon with which the Church opens the first Vespers of the feast. And in fact, by this hour he has already entered the arena. With noble irony he has challenged the authorities, and has even shed his blood. On the very day of the martyrdom of Sixtus II, Cornelius Secularis, Prefect of Rome, summoned Laurence before his tribunal, but granted him the delay necessary for gathering together the riches required by the imperial treasury. Valerian did not include the obscure members of the Church in his edicts of persecution. He aimed at ruining the Christians by prohibiting their assemblies, putting their chief men to death, and confiscating their property. This accounts for the fact that on the sixth of August the faithful assembled in the cemetery of Praetextatus were dispersed, the Pontiff executed, and the chief deacon arrested and ordered to deliver up the treasures which the government knew to be in his keeping.

“Acknowledge my just and peaceable claims,” said the Prefect. “It is said that at your orgies your priests are accustomed according to the laws of your worship to make libations in cups of gold, that silver vessels smoke with the blood of the victims, and that the torches that give light to your nocturnal mysteries are fixed in golden candlesticks. And then you have such love and care for the brotherhood: report says you sell your lands in order to devote to their service thousands of sesterces; so that while the son is disinherited by his holy parents and groans in poverty, his patrimony is piously hidden away in the secrecy of your temples. Bring forth these immense treasures, the shameful spoils you have won by deceiving the credulous; the public good demands them. Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, that he may have wherewith to fill his treasury and pay his armies.” Laurence, untroubled by these words and as if quite willing to obey, gently answered: “I confess you speak the truth. Our Church is indeed wealthy. No one in the world, not even Augustus himself, possesses such riches. I will disclose them all to you, and I will show you the treasures of Christ. All I ask for is a short delay, which will enable me the better to perform what I have promised. For I must make an inventory of all, count them up, and value each article.” The Prefect’s heart swelled with joy and gloating over the gold he hoped soon to possess, he granted him a delay of three days. Meanwhile Laurence hastened all over the town and assembled the legions of poor whom their Mother the Church supported: lame and blind, cripple and beggars, he called them all. None knew them better than the Archdeacon.

Next he counted them, wrote down their names, and arranged them in long lines. On the appointed day he returned to the judge and thus addressed him: “Come with me and admire the incomparable riches of the sanctuary of our God.” They went together to the spot where the crowds of poor were standing, clothed in rags and filling the air with their supplications. “Why do you shudder?” said Laurence to the Prefect, “do you call that a vile and contemptible spectacle? If you seek after wealth, know that the brightest gold is Christ, who is the light, and the human race redeemed by Him, for they are the sons of the light, all these who are shielded by their bodily weakness from the assault of pride and evil passion. Soon they will lay aside their ulcers in the palace of eternal life, and will shine in marvellous glory, clothed in purple and bearing golden crowns on their heads. See here is the gold which I promised you — gold of a kind that fire cannot touch or thief steal from you. Think not then that Christ is poor: behold these choice pearls, these sparkling gems that adorn the temple, these sacred virgins I mean, and these widows who refuse second marriage. They form the priceless necklace of the Church, they deck her brow, they are her bridal ornaments, and win for her Christ’s love. Behold then all our riches: take them. They will beautify the city of Romulus, they will increase the Emperor’s treasures and enrich you yourself.”

From a letter of Pope Saint Cornelius written a few years after these events we learn that the number of widows and poor persons that the Church of Rome supported, exceeded 1500. By thus exhibiting them before the magistrate, Laurence knew that he endangered no one but himself, for the persecution of Valerian, as we have already observed, overlooked the inferior classes and attacked the leading members of the Church. Divine Wisdom thus confronted Caesarism and its brutality with Christianity which it so despised, but which was destined to overcome and subdue it.

This happened on the ninth of August 258. The first answer the furious Prefect made was to order Laurence to be scourged and tortured on the rack. But these tortures were only a prelude to the great ordeal he was preparing for the noble-hearted Deacon. We learn this tradition from Saint Damasus, for he says that, besides the flames, Laurence triumphed over “blows, tortures, torments and chains.” We have also the authority of the notice inserted by Ado of Vienne in his martyrology in the ninth century, and taken from a still more ancient source. The conformity of expression proves that it was partly from this same source that the Gregorian Antiphonal had already taken the Antiphons and Responsories of the feast. Besides the details which we learn from Prudentius and the Fathers, this Office alludes to the converts Laurence made while in prison, and to his restoring sight to the blind. This last seems to have been the special gift of the holy deacon during the days preceding his martyrdom.

The August sun has set behind the Vatican, and the life and animation which his burning heat had stilled for a time, begins once more on the Seven Hills. Laurence was taken down from the rack about midday. In his prison, however, he took no rest, but wounded and bleeding as he was, he baptised the converts won to Christ by the sight of his courageous suffering. He confirmed their faith and fired their souls with a martyr’s intrepidity. When the evening hour summoned Rome to its pleasures, the Prefect recalled the executioners to their work. For a few hours’ rest had sufficiently restored their energy to enable them to satisfy his cruelty. Surrounded by this ill-favoured company, the Prefect thus addressed the valiant deacon: “Sacrifice to the gods, or else the whole night long will be witness of your torments.” “My night has no darkness,” answered Laurence, “and all things are full of light to me.” They struck him on the mouth with stones, but he smiled and said “I give you thanks, O Christ.” Then an iron bed or gridiron with three bars was brought in and the Saint was stripped of his garments and extended on it while burning coals were placed beneath it. As they were holding him down with iron forks, Laurence said: “I offer myself as a sacrifice to God for an odour of sweetness.” The executioners continually stirred up the fire and brought fresh coals, while they still held him down with their forks. Then the Saint said: “Learn, unhappy man, how great is the power of my God, for your burning coals give me refreshment, but they will be your eternal punishment. I call you, O Lord, to witness: when I was accused, I did not deny you. When I was questioned, I confessed you, O Christ. On the red-hot coals I gave you thanks.” And with his countenance radiant with heavenly beauty, he continued: “Yes, I give you thanks, O Lord Jesus Christ, for that you have deigned to strengthen me.” He then raised his eyes to his judge and said: “See, this side is well roasted. Turn me on the other and eat.” Then continuing his canticle of praise to God: “I give you thanks, O Lord, that I have merited to enter into your dwelling-place.” As he was on the point of death, he remembered the Church. The thought of the eternal Rome gave him fresh strength, and he breathed forth this ecstatic prayer: “O Christ, only God, O Splendour, O Power of the Father, O Maker of Heaven and Earth and builder of this city’s walls! You have placed Rome’s sceptre high over all. You have willed to subject the world to it, in order to unite under one law the nations which differ in manners, customs, language, genius and sacrifice. Behold the whole human race has submitted to its empire, and all discord and dissensions disappear in its unity. Remember your purpose: You willed to bind the immense universe together into one Christian Kingdom. O Christ, for the sake of your Romans, make this city Christian, for to it you gave the charge of leading all the rest to sacred unity. All its members in every place are united — a very type of your Kingdom. The conquered universe has bowed before it. Oh may its royal head be bowed in turn! Send your Gabriel and bid him heal the blindness of the sons of Julius that they may know the true God. I see a prince who is to come — an Emperor who is a servant of God. He will not suffer Rome to remain a slave. He will close the temples and fasten them with bolts forever.”

Thus he prayed, and with these last words he breathed forth his soul. Some noble Romans who had been conquered to Christ by the martyr’s admirable boldness removed his body: the love of the Most High God had suddenly filled their hearts and dispelled their former errors. From that day the worship of the infamous gods grew cold. Few people went now to the temples, but hastened to the altars of Christ. Thus Laurence, going unarmed to the battle, had wounded the enemy with his own sword.

The Church, which is always grateful in proportion to the service rendered her, could not forget this glorious night. At the period when her children’s piety vied with her own, she used to summon them together at sunset on the evening of the ninth of August for a first Night Office. At midnight the second Matins began, followed by the first Mass called “of the night or of the early morning.” Thus the Christians watched around the holy deacon during the hours of his glorious combat. “O God, you have proved my heart, and visited it by night, you have tried me by fire, and iniquity has not been found in me. Hear, O Lord, my justice. Attend to my supplication” (Psalm xvi.). Such is the grand Introit which immediately after the night Vigils hallowed the dawn of the tenth of August at the very moment when Laurence entered the eternal sanctuary to fulfil his office at the heavenly altar.

Later on certain churches observed on this feast a custom similar to one in use at the Matins of the commemoration of Saint Paul. It consisted in reciting a particular Versicle before repeating each Antiphon of the Nocturns. The Doctors of the sacred Liturgy tell us that the remarkable labours of the Doctor of the Gentiles and those of Saint Laurence earned for them this distinction. Our forefathers were greatly struck by the contrast between the endurance of the holy deacon under his cruel tortures and his tender-hearted, tearful parting with Sixtus II three days before. On this account they gave to the periodical showers of “falling stars,” which occur about the tenth of August, the graceful name of Saint Laurence’s tears: a touching instance of that popular piety which delights in raising the heart to God through the medium of natural phenomena.

Epistle – 2 Corinthians ix. 6–10

Brethren, he who sows sparingly, will also reap sparingly. And he who sows in blessings, will also reap of blessings. Every one as he has determined in his heart: not with sadness, or of necessity, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound in you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work, as it is written: ‘He has dispersed abroad. He has given to the poor. His justice remains forever.’ And he that ministers seed to the sower will both give you bread to eat and will multiply your seed, and increase the growth of the fruits of your justice.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

“He has dispersed abroad, he has given to the poor: his justice remains forever.” The Roman Church loves to repeat these words of Psalm cxi. In honour of her great archdeacon. Yesterday she sang them in the Introit and Gradual of the Vigil. Again they were heard last night in the Responsories, and this morning in the Versicle of her triumphant Lauds. Indeed, the Epistle we have just read, which also furnishes the Little Chapters for the several Hours, was selected for today because of this same text being quoted by the Apostle. Evidently the choice graces which won for Laurence his glorious martyrdom were, in the Church’s estimation, the outcome of the brave and cheerful fidelity with which he distributed to the poor the treasures in his keeping. “He who sows sparingly, will also reap sparingly. And he who sows in blessings, will also reap of blessings.” Such is the supernatural economy of the Holy Ghost in the distribution of His gifts, as exemplified in the glorious scenes we have witnessed during these three days. We may add with the Apostle: What touches the heart of God, and moves Him to multiply his favours, is not so much the work itself as the spirit that prompts it. “God loves a cheerful giver.” Noble-hearted, tender, devoted, and self-forgetful heroic with a heroism born of simplicity no less than of courage, gracious and smiling even on his gridiron: such was Laurence towards God, towards his father Sixtus II towards the lowly. And the same he was towards the powerful and in the very face of death. The closing of his life did but prove that he was as faithful in great things as he had been in small. Seldom are nature and grace so perfectly in harmony as they were in the young deacon, and though the gift of martyrdom is so great that no one can merit it, yet his particularly glorious martyrdom seems to have been the development, as if by natural evolution, of the precious germs planted by the Holy Ghost in the rich soil of his noble nature.

Gospel – John xii. 24–26

At that time Jesus said to His disciples: “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, itself remains alone but if it die, it brings forth much fruit He that loves his life will lose it, and he that hates his life in this world keeps it to life eternal. If any man minister to me, let him follow me. And where I am, there also will my minister be. If any man minister to me, him will my Father honour.”

Praise be to you, O Christ.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The Gospel we have just read was thus commented by Saint Augustine on this very feast: “Your faith recognises the grain that fell into the earth, and having died was multiplied. Your faith, I say, recognises this grain, for the same dwells in your souls.” That it was concerning Himself Christ spoke these words no Christian doubts. But now that that seed is dead and has been multiplied, many grains have been sown in the earth. Among them is the blessed Laurence, and this is the day of his sowing. What an abundant harvest has sprung from these grains scattered over all the earth! We see it, we rejoice in it, nay, we ourselves are the harvest. If if so be, by His grace we belong to the granary. For not all that grows in the field belongs to the granary. The same useful nourishing rain feeds both the wheat and the chaff. God forbid that both should be laid up together in the granary although they grew together in the field, and were threshed together in the threshing floor.

Now is the time to choose. Let us now, before the winnowing, separate ourselves from the wicked by our manner of life, as in the floor the grain is threshed out of the chaff, though not yet separated from it by the final winnowing. Hear me, ye holy grains, who, I doubt not, are here; for if I doubted, I should not be a grain myself: hear me, I say; or rather, hear that first grain speaking by me. Love not your life in this world: love it not if you truly love it, so that by not loving you may preserve it; for by not loving, you love the more. “He that loves his life in this world will lose it.” Thus because Laurence was as an enemy to himself and lost his life in this world, he found it in the next. Being a minister of Christ by his very title, for deacon means minister, he followed the Man-God as the Gospel exhorts. He followed him to the altar, and to the altar of the Cross. Having fallen with Him into the earth, he has been multiplied in Him. Though separated from Saint Laurence by distance of time and place, yet we are ourselves, as the Bishop of Hippo teaches, a part of the harvest that is ever springing from him. Let this thought excite us to gratitude towards the holy deacon, and let us all the more eagerly unite our homage with the honour bestowed on him by our heavenly Father for having ministered to His Son.

“Thrice blessed are the Roman people, for they honour you on the very spot where your sacred bones repose! They prostrate in your sanctuary, and watering the ground with their tears they pour out their vows. We who are distant from Rome, separated by Alps and Pyrenees, how can we even imagine what treasures she possesses, or how rich is her earth in sacred tombs? We have not her privileges, we cannot trace the martyrs’ bloody footsteps. But from afar we gaze on the heavens. O holy Laurence! It is there we seek the memorial of your passion: for you have two dwelling-places, that of your body on Earth and that of your soul in Heaven. In the ineffable heavenly city you have been received to citizenship, and the civic crown adorns your brow in its eternal Senate. So brightly shine your jewels that it seems the heavenly Rome has chosen you perpetual Consul. The joy of the Quirites proves how great is your office, your influence and your power, for you grant their requests. You hear all who pray to you, they ask what they will and none ever goes away sad. Ever assist your children of the Queen City. Give them the strong support of your fatherly love, and a mother’s tender, fostering care. Together with them, O you honour of Christ, listen to your humble client confessing his misery and sins. I acknowledge that I am not worthy that Christ should hear me, but through the patronage of the holy Martyrs, my evils can be remedied. Hearken to your suppliant. In your goodness free me from the fetters of the flesh and of the world” (Prudentius).

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Rome, the martyrdom of one hundred and sixty five holy martyrs who were soldiers under the emperor Aurelian.

At Bergamo, St. Asteria, virgin and martyr, in the persecution of the emperors Diocletian and Maximian.

At Alexandria, the commemoration of the holy martyrs, in the persecution of Valerian under the governor Æmilian. They were a long time subjected to various excruciating torments and won the crown of martyrdom by different kinds of deaths.

At Carthage, the holy virgins and martyrs Bassa, Paula and Agathonica.

At Rome, the holy confessor Deusdedit, a labouring man, who gave to the poor every Saturday what he had earned during the week.

In Spain, the Apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary, under the name of our Lady of Ransom, foundress of the Order for the Redemption of Captives.

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

Thanks be to God.

9 AUGUST – SAINT ROMANUS (Martyr)

Romanus Ostiarius was a soldier who converted to Christianity by the example of Saint Lawrence, who baptised him after he was imprisoned. After confessing what he had done, Romanus was arraigned and beheaded in 258 AD, on the eve of the martyrdom of Saint Lawrence.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

“Fear not, my servant, for I am with you, says the Lord. If you pass through fire, the flame will not hurt you, and the odour of fire will not be in you. I will deliver you out of the hand of the wicked, and I will redeem you out of the hand of the mighty” (Isaias xliii.; Jeremias xv.). It was the hour of combat, and Wisdom, more powerful than flame, was calling on Laurence to win the laurels of victory presaged by his very name. The three days since the death of Sixtus had passed at length, and the deacon’s exile was about to close: he was soon to stand beside his Pontiff at the altar in Heaven, and never more to be separated from him. But before going to perform his office as deacon in the eternal sacrifice, he must on this Earth, where the seeds of eternity are sown, give proof of the brave faithfulness which becomes a Levite of the Law of Love. Laurence was ready. He had said to Sixtus: “Try the fidelity of the minister to whom you entrusted the dispensation of the Blood of our Lord.” He had now, according to the Pontiff’s wish, distributed to the poor the treasures of the Church, as the chants of the Liturgy tell us on this very morning. But he knew that if a man should give all the substance of his house for love, he will despise it as nothing (Canticles viii. 7), and he longed to give himself as well. Overflowing with joy in his generosity he hailed the holocaust whose sweet perfume he seemed already to perceive rising up to Heaven. And well might he have sung the offertory of this Vigil’s Mass: “My prayer is pure, and therefore I ask that a place be given to my voice in heaven: for my judge is there, and he that knowes my conscience is on high: let my prayer ascend to the Lord” (Job xvi.).

Sublime prayer of the just man which pierces the clouds! Even now we can say with the Church: “His seed will be mighty upon earth,” (Psalms cxi.) the seed of new Christians sprung from the blood of martyrdom; for today we greet the first fruits thereof in the person of Romanus, the neophyte whom his first torments won to Christ, and who preceded him to Heaven.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

In Tuscany, the birthday of the holy martyrs Secundian, Marcellian and Verian. In the time of Decius, they were scourged by the ex-consul Promotus, then racked and torn with iron hooks. Being burned with fire applied to their sides, they merited the triumphant palm of martyrdom by having their heads struck off.

At Verona, the holy martyrs Firmus and Rusticus, in the time of the emperor Maximian.

In Africa, the commemoration of many holy martyrs, during the persecution of Valerian. Being exhorted by St. Numidicus, they obtained the palm of martyrdom by being cast into the fire, but Numidicus, although thrown into the flames with the others and overwhelmed with stones, was nevertheless taken out by his daughter. Found half dead, he was restored and deserved afterwards by his virtue to be made priest of the church of Carthage by blessed Cyprian.

At Constantinople, the holy martyrs Julian, Marcian and eight others. For having set up the image of our Saviour on the brazen gate, they were exposed to many torments, and then beheaded by order of the impious emperor Leo.

At Chalons in France, St. Domitian, bishop and confessor.

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

Thanks be to God.

9 AUGUST – ELEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

With the Greeks, this Sunday — their eleventh of Saint Matthew — is called The Kings Parable, who calls his servants to account. In the Western Church it has gone under the name of Sunday of the deaf and dumb ever since the Gospel of the Pharisee and Publican has been assigned to the tenth.

Epistle – 1 Corinthians xv. 1‒10

Brethren, Now I make known to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you have received and in which you stand. By which also you are saved, if you hold fast after what manner I preached to you, unless you have believed in vain. For I delivered to you first of all, which I also received: how that Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures: And that He was buried: and that He rose again the third day, according to the scriptures: And that He was seen by Cephas, and after that by the eleven. Then He was seen by more than five hundred brethren at once: of whom many remain until this present, and some are fallen asleep. After that, He was seen by James: then by all the apostles. And last of all, He was seen also by me, as by one born out of due time. For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God, I am what I am. And His grace in me has not been void.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Last Sunday the Publican reminded us of the Humility which should exist in the sinner: today the Doctor of the Gentiles shows us, by his own example, that this virtue is quite as suitable to a man who, though now justified, never forgets how in the past he offended his Maker. The sins of the now just man, even though long since forgiven, are always before him (Psalms l. 5), having a tendency to be his own accuser (Proverbs xviii. 17), he finds, in the fact that God has pardoned and forgotten his sins (Ezechiel xviii) nothing but an additional motive for his own never ceasing to remember them. The heavenly favours which may sometimes come upon him as a recompense for the sincerity of his repentance, the manifestation of the secrets of eternal Wisdom may be accorded him (Psalms l. 8). He may, perhaps, be permitted to enter into the powers of the Lord and there get a keen insight into the rights of infinite justice (Psalms lxx. 16), yet all these favours do but help him to see more clearly the enormity of those voluntary sins of his which added their own malice to the original stains he was born with (Psalms l. 6, 7).

As he progresses in sanctity, Humility becomes to him something more than a satisfaction paid to justice and truth by a mind enlightened from on high: in proportion as he lives with God in closer and closer union and, by contemplation, goes up higher (Luke xiv. 10) in light and love, divine charity, which is ever pressing him (2 Corinthians v. 14) on every side, turns the very remembrance of his past sins into what will make that Charity more ardent. That burning Charity of his fathoms the deep abyss from which grace has drawn him, and then she darts upwards from those depths of Hell more vehement, more imperious, more active, than ever. Gratitude for the priceless riches he now possesses by the munificence of his divine Benefactor does not satisfy that sinner of former days. The avowal of his past miseries must and does escape from his enraptured soul as a hymn to his God. Like Augustine, who was but imitating Paul (1 Corinthians xv. 8‒10) “he glorifies the just and the good God by publishing both the good he has received and the bad of his own acts, and this in order to win over to the One sole object of his praise and his love the minds and hearts of all who hear him.”

This illustrious convert of Monica and Ambrose headed the magnificent Book of his Confessions with these words of the 47th Psalm which so admirably express the object he proposed to himself, by thus telling all about himself: “Great are you, Lord, and exceedingly to be praised: Great is your power, and of your wisdom there is no number” (Psalms xlvii. 2; clxvi. 5), “And yet,” says the Saint, “man wishes to praise you — man, a mere speck of your creation, who carries about him his own mortality and the testimony of his sin, and the testimony that you resist the proud (James iv. 6) and yet, this man wishes to praise you — man, a mere speck of your creation. You excite him to take delight in praising you. Receive, then, the homage which is offered you by the tongue that was formed for the purpose of praising you. Let my flesh and all my bones, that have been healed by you, cry out: ‘Who, Lord, is like you?’ (Psalms xxxiv. 10) Let my soul praise you, that it may love you. And that she may praise you, let her confess your mercies. I wish now to go over, in my mind, all my long wanderings, and I will confess the things which fill me with shame, and will make of them a sacrifice of joy (Psalms xcv. 17). Not that I love my sins, but it is that I may love you, my God, that I recall them to mind. It is out of love of your love that I now recur to those bitter things, that I may taste your delights, Sweetness that never deceives! Blissful Sweetness that has no dangers, you that collects all my powers and recalls them from the painful scattering into which they had been thrown by my separation from you: you one centre of all being! What am I to myself when I have not you, but a guide that leads me to the abyss? Or, what am I, when all is well with me, but a little one that is sucking in the milk which you provide, or enjoying you, the Food that knows not corruption? And what manner of man is any man, for he is but a man? Let them that are strong and mighty — them that have not as yet had the happiness of being laid low and cast down— let them laugh at me! I am a weak man and poor, and I give you praise. For that I need neither voice nor words. The cries of the thought are what you hear. For, when I am wicked, my being displeased with myself is a real giving you praise. But when I am pious, my not attributing it to myself is again, a real giving you praise, for if you, Lord, bless the just man it is because you had first justified him when he was ungodly.”

“By the grace of God, I am what I am.” The just man should make this language of the Apostle be his own. And when this fundamental truth is thoroughly impressed on his soul, then may he fearlessly add with him: “His grace in me has not been void.” For, Humility is based on Truth, as we said last Sunday. And as it would be contrary to truth were one to refer to man what man has from God, so likewise would it be an injury to truth not to recognise, as the Saints did, the works of grace where God has wrought them. In the former case, justice — in the latter, gratitude would be offended — as well as truth. Now, Humility — whose direct aim is to avoid these unjust infringements on the glory due to God by repressing the risings of pride — Humility is also the earnest prompter of gratitude, so truly so, indeed, that a proud man can never be a grateful one. Or, to say it in other words, the greatest enemy to the generous virtue of gratitude is pride.

It is quite true, that it is good and prudent and, generally speaking, necessary for souls to dwell on the consideration of their faults rather than on the favours they have received from God, and this more especially in the first beginning of their conversion — still, it is never lawful for any man to forget that besides being grieved for his past sins and being vigilant as to present temptations, he has also the bounden duty of ceaselessly thanking the divine Benefactor who gave him both the grace of a change of life and the subsequent progress in virtue (Psalms l. 16, 17). When a Christian cannot see a grace or any good in himself without having immediately to struggle against self-complacency and a tendency to prefer himself to others, he must not be troubled, of course, for the sin of pride is not in the evil suggestions which may arise within him, but in the consent which is yielded to such suggestions. And yet, this weakness which accompanies the thinking on God’s graces is not without its dangers in the spiritual life: and the Christian who is resolved on making any advance in perfection must sweetly aim at getting altogether rid of such weakness. Aided by grace, he will gradually find the eye of his soul growing stronger by the infirmity of nature getting cured, and by the removal of the involuntary remnants of sin which, as so many vicious humours, falsify the beautiful light of God’s gifts, or even sometimes distort it altogether by an unhappy refraction. “If your eye be single,” says our Lord, “your whole body will be lightsome, having no part of darkness; the whole will be lightsome” (Luke xi. 34‒36) — the light will enlighten you completely and surely, because it will come to you without any vapoury interference or deviation.

If the eye be simple! Yes, it is holy simplicity, daughter and inseparable companion of humility, that will show us how these two things co-exist and mutually tell on each other when a soul is what it should be — the close deliberate consideration of the favours she has received from Heaven, and the clear consciousness of her own miseries. This admirable simplicity will lead us to the school of the Scriptures and the Saints, there to teach us that the “soul’s being praised in the Lord” (Psalms xxxiii. 3) and our “glorying in the Lord” (1 Corinthians i. 31) is really a giving praise and glory to God Himself. When our Lady declared in her Canticle that all generations would call her blessed, the divine enthusiasm which was inspiring her was quite as fully the ecstasy of her humility as it was that of her love (Luke i. 48). The lives of God’s best servants are at every turn showing us these sublime transports in which they make the Magnificat of their Queen become their own hymn of praise to that God, magnifying Him for all the great things which He, the mighty One, vouchsafed to do through their instrumentality (Luke i. 49). When Saint after having expressed the low estimation he had of himself compared with the other Apostles, then adds that grace had not been a failure in him, and that he had even laboured more abundantly than all of them (1 Corinthians xv. 10), we are not to suppose that he has changed his tone, or that the Holy Spirit, who guides him, now wishes to recall his previous words. No: it is one and the same conviction, one and the same desire which inspire these words, apparently so different and so contrary: the conviction and desire that God must not and will not be disappointed in His gifts, either by the self- appropriation of pride, or by the silence of ingratitude.

We have purposely limited our reflections to the truths suggested by the concluding lines of our Epistle because they complete what we had to say on Humility, that indispensable virtue on which depends not only all progress, but even all surety, in the Christian life. What Saint Paul here says regarding the Resurrection of our Lord, which is the basis of the apostolic preaching and of the faith of mankind (1 Corinthians xv. 14) is a subject of quite equal importance, but this grand doctrine which, through the Paschal solemnity, gives to the Liturgical Year its both pivot and centre, has been treated of, during the Easter Octave with all the fullness it deserved, and even were we not compelled to it from want of space, we could not do better than refer our readers to that Volume.

Gospel – Mark vii. 31‒37

At that time, Jesus again going out of the coasts of Tyre, He came by Sidon to the sea of Galilee, through the midst of the coasts of Decapolis. And they bring to Him one deaf and dumb: and they besought Him that He would lay His hand upon him. And taking him from the multitude apart, He put his fingers into his ears: and spitting, He touched his tongue. And looking up to heaven, He groaned and said to him: “Ephpheta!” which is, “Be opened!” And immediately his ears were opened and the string of his tongue was loosed and he spoke right. And He charged them that they should tell no man. But the more He charged them, so much the more a great deal did they publish it. And so much the more did they wonder, saying: “He has done all things well. He has made both the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak.”

Praise be to you, O Christ.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Jesus is no longer in Judea: the names of the places mentioned in the beginning of today’s Gospel tell us very clearly that the Gentile world has become the scene of the divine operations for man’s salvation. What manner of man, then, is this who is led to the Saviour, and the sight of whose miseries make the Incarnate Word heave a sigh? And what is the meaning of the extraordinary circumstances which produce the cure? A single word of Jesus could have done it all, and His power would have shone forth all the more brightly. But the miracle which is here related contains a great mystery, and the Man-God, who aims mainly at giving us a lesson by this His mercy, makes the exercise of His power subordinate to the teaching which he desires to convey to us.

The holy Fathers tell us that this man represents the entire human race, exclusive of the Jewish people. Abandoned for [thousands of] years in the sides, that is, in the countries of the North where the prince of this world was ruling as absolute master (Isaias xiv. 12), it has been experiencing the terrible effects of the seeming forgetfulness on the part of its Creator and Father, which was the consequence of original sin. Satan, whose perfidious craftiness has caused man to be driven out of Paradise, has made him his own prey, and nothing could exceed the artifice he has employed for keeping him in his grasp. Wisely oppressing (Exodus i. 10) his slave, he adopted the plan of making him deaf and dumb, for this would hold him faster than chains of adamant could ever do. Dumb, he could not ask God to deliver him. Deaf, he could not hear the divine voice. And thus the two ways for obtaining his liberty were shut against him. The adversary of God and man — Satan — he may boast of his tyranny. The grandest of all God’s creations looks like a failure. The human race in all its branches and in all nations seems ruined, for even that people whom God had chosen for His own and was to be faithful to Him when every other had gone astray (Deuteronomy xxxii. 9), even that has made no other use of its privileges than the denying its Lord and its King, more cruelly than all the rest of mankind!

What then is the Bride, whom the Son of God came to seek upon the Earth — is the society of saints — to be limited to those few who declared themselves His disciples during the years of His mortal life? Not so: the zeal of the newly formed Church and the ineffable goodness of God produced a far grander result. Driven from Jerusalem as her divine Spouse had been, the Church met the poor captive of Satan beyond the boundaries of Judea. She would fain bring him into the kingdom of God and, through the apostles and their disciples, she brings him to Jesus, beseeching Him to lay His divine hand on him. No human power could effect his cure. He, deafened by the noise of his passions, it is only in a confused way that he can hear even the voice of his own conscience. And as to the sounds of tradition, or the speakings of the prophets, they are to him but as an echo, very distant and faint. Worst of all, as his hearing is gone — that most precious of our senses while on Earth — so likewise is gone the power of making good his losses, for as the Apostle teaches, the one thing that could save him is Faith, and “Faith comes by hearing” (Romans x. 17), and his hearing is dead. Our Jesus groans when they have brought this poor creature before Him. He was grieved at seeing the cruelties the enemy had inflicted on this His own privileged being, this beautiful work, of which He Himself had served as model and type to the Blessed Trinity at the beginning of the world (Genesis i. 26). Raising up to Heaven those eyes of His sacred Humanity, those eyes, whose language has such resistless power (John xi. 42), He sees the Eternal Father acquiescing to the intentions of His own merciful compassion. Then, resuming the exercise of that creative omnipotence which in the beginning had made all things to be very good (Genesis i. 31) and all His works be perfect (Deuteronomy xxxii. 42), He, as God and as the Word (John i. 3), utters the mighty word of restoration: “Ephpheta!” Be opened! Nothingness, or rather (in this instance) Ruin, which is worse than nothingness, obey the well-known voice. The ears of the poor sufferer are opened, joyfully opened to the teachings which his delighted Mother the Church pours into them. She is all the gladder because it was her prayers that won this deliverance, and he in whom Faith comes now through his ears making him a changed being, he, finding that his tongue can speak, speaks, or rather, sings out a canticle of praise to his God, a canticle none the less well sung, because it is the first time he has been able to be its chanter.

And yet, as we were observing this merciful Lord of ours, He by this cure aims not so much at showing the power of His divine word, as at giving a glorious teaching to His followers. He wishes to reveal to them under certain visible symbols the invisible realities produced by His grace in the secret of the Sacraments. It is for the sake of such teaching that the Gospel has mentioned such an apparently trifling detail as this — that when the deaf and dumb man was brought before Him, He took him apart, apart, so to say, from the multitude of the noisy passions and the vain thoughts which had made him deaf to heavenly truths. After all, would there be much good in curing him if the occasion of his malady were not removed and he were to relapse perhaps that same day? So then, having by this separation taken precautions for the future, Jesus inserts into the ears of the man’s body His own divine fingers which bring the Holy Ghost (Luke xi. 20; Matthew xii. 28) and make to penetrate right to the ears of his heart the restorative power of this Spirit of love. And finally, more mysteriously, because the truth which was to be expressed is more profound, He touches with the saliva of His sacred mouth that tongue which had become incapable of giving glory and praise. And Wisdom (for it is she that is here mystically signified) — Wisdom, “that comes forth from the mouth of the Most High” (Ecclesiaticus xxiv. 5) and flows for us from the Saviour’s fountains (Isaias xii. 3) as a life-giving drink (Ecclesiasticus xxiv. 5) — yes, this Wisdom “opens the mouth of dumb man” (Wisdom x. 21), just as she makes “eloquent the tongues” of speechless infants (Wisdom x. 21).

Therefore it is that the Church, in order to show us that the event recorded in today’s Gospel is figurative, not merely of one individual man, but of us all, has prescribed that the circumstances which accompanied the cure of this deaf and dumb sufferer will be expressed in the ceremonies of holy Baptism. The Priest, before pouring the water of the sacred Font on the person who is presented for Baptism, puts on the Catechumen’s tongue the salt of Wisdom and touches his ears, saying: “Ephpheta!” That is, Be opened!

There is an instruction of another kind included in our Gospel, and which is worthy of our notice, as closely bearing on what we have been saying regarding Humility. Our Lord imposes silence on those who have been witnesses of the miraculous cure, although he knew that their praise-worthy enthusiasm could never allow them to obey Him. By His injunction He wishes to give a lesson to his followers that if at times it is impossible to keep men from being in admiration at the works they achieve, if sometimes the Holy Spirit, in opposition to their wishes, forces them to undergo public applause for the greater glory of the God whose instruments they are, yet must they always do all in their power to avoid being noticed. They must prefer to be despised (Psalms lxxxiii. 11) or at least not talked of. They must love to be hid in the secret of the face of God (Psalms xxx. 21) and after the most brilliant, just as truly as they would after the most menial duties, they must say from the heartiest conviction: “We are unprofitable servants, we have but done what we ought to do” (Luke xvii. 10).

8 AUGUST – SAINT MARY OF THE CROSS (Virgin) (AUSTRALIA ONLY)

Today is the feast day of Australia’s first and only saint, Mary of the Cross, who was canonised by Pope Benedict XVI on 17 October 2010.

Mary Helen MacKillop (baptised Maria Ellen), the oldest of eight children, was born in Melbourne, Victoria, in 1842 to Alexander MacKillop and Flora MacDonald who had migrated to Australia from Scotland.

With Father Julian Tenison Woods, Mary founded the Sisters of Saint Joseph of the Sacred Heart (the Josephites), a congregation of female religious which was approved by Pope Leo XIII in 1888. The congregation established many schools for the education of children from poor families, particularly in rural areas.

In 1871 Adelaide Archbishop Lawrence Bonaventure Sheil excommunicated Mary for supposed disobedience and closed most of her schools, but the sentence was later rescinded and Mary was completely exonerated by an episcopal commission.

Mary died on the 8th of August 1909 in the Josephite convent in North Sydney and was interred at the nearby Gore Hill Cemetery. In 1914 her body was exhumed and translated to a vault in a newly built memorial chapel in Mount Street in Sydney.

Saint Mary of the Cross is the patroness of the city of Brisbane and of the Knights of the Southern Cross, a fraternal order of laymen which promotes the Catholic way of life and operates many aged care facilities throughout Australia.

 

7 AUGUST – SAINT CAJETAN (Confessor)

Cajetan was born to the noble family of the Lords of Thienna near Vicenza in Lombardy in 1480. His mother immediately dedicated him to the Blessed Virgin Mary. His innocence appeared so wonderful from his very childhood that everyone called him “the Saint.” He took the degree of Doctor in canon and civil law at Padua, and then went to Rome where Pope Julius II made him a prelate. When he received the priesthood, such a fire of divine love was kindled in his soul that he left the court to devote himself entirely to God. He renounced the dignities offered to him in Rome and devoted himself to the service of the poor and sick of Vicenza. With Peter Caraffa (who became Pope Paul IV) he founded the Congregation of Regular Clerks of the Divine Providence (called the Theatines, from Theate (Chieti) in the Abruzzi, where Caraffa was Bishop). This Congregation was one of the most prominent among the fruits of the revival of Catholic piety in the sixteenth century and was characterised by absolute trust in Divine Providence.

During the sack of Rome, Cajetan was cruelly treated by the soldiers to make him deliver up his money which the bands of the poor had long ago carried into the heavenly treasures. He endured with the utmost patience stripes, torture and imprisonment. He persevered unfalteringly in the kind of life he had embraced, relying entirely on Divine Providence. God never failed him, as was sometimes proved by miracle. He was a great promoter of assiduity at the divine worship, of the beauty of the House of God, of exactness in holy ceremonies, and of the frequentation of the most Holy Eucharist. More than once he detected and foiled the wicked subterfuges of heresy. He would prolong his prayers for eight hours, without ceasing to shed tears. He was often rapt in ecstasy and was famous for the gift of prophecy. At Rome, one Christmas night, while he was praying at our Lord’s crib, the Mother of God was pleased to lay the infant Jesus in his arms.

Cajetan would spend whole nights in chastising his body with disciplines, and could never be induced to relax anything of the austerity of his life: for he would say, he wished to die in sackcloth and ashes. At length he fell into an illness caused by the intense sorrow he felt at seeing the people offend God by a sedition, and at Naples, after being refreshed by a heavenly vision, he passed to heaven in 1547 and was canonised by Pope Clement X in 1671. Saint Cajetan (known in Italy as San Gaetano) is the patron of the unemployed, those seeking work, gamblers and good fortune.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Cajetan appeared in all his zeal for the sanctuary at the time when the false reform was spreading rebellion throughout the world. The great cause of the danger had been the incapacity of the guardians of the Holy City, or their connivance by complicity of heart or of mind with pagan doctrines and manners introduced by an ill-advised revival. Wasted by the wild boar of the forest, could the vineyard of the Lord recover the fertility of its better days? Cajetan learned from Eternal Wisdom the new method of culture required by an exhausted soil. The urgent need of those unfortunate times was that the clergy should be raised up again by worthy life, zeal and knowledge. For this object men were required, who being clerks themselves in the full acceptance of the word, with all the obligations it involves, should be to the members of the holy hierarchy a permanent model of its primitive perfection, a supplement to their shortcomings, and a leaven, little by little raising the whole mass. But where, save in the life of the counsels with the stability of its three vows, could be found the impulse, the power, and the permanence necessary for such an enterprise? The inexhaustible fecundity of the religious life was no more wanting in the Church in those days of decadence than in the periods of her glory. After the monks, turning to God in their solitudes and drawing down light and love upon the earth seemingly so forgotten by them; after the mendicant Orders, keeping up in the midst of the world their claustral habits of life and the austerity of the desert: the regular clerks entered upon the battlefield by which their position in the fight, their exterior manner of life, their very dress, they were to mingle with the ranks of the secular clergy; just as a few veterans are sent into the midst of a wavering troop, to act upon the rest by word and example and dash. Like the initiators of the great ancient forms of religious life, Cajetan was the Patriarch of the Regular Clerks. Under this name Clement VII, by a brief dated 24th June 1524, approved the institute he had founded that very year in concert with the Bishop of Theati, from whom the new religious were also called Theatines. Soon the Barnabites, the Society of Jesus, the Somasques of Saint Jerome Aemilian, the Regular Clerks Minor of Saint Francis Carracciolo, the Regular Clerks ministering to the sick, the Regular Clerks of the Pious Schools, the Regular Clerks of the Mother of God, and others, hastened to follow in the track, and proved that the Church is ever beautiful, ever worthy of her Spouse, while the accusation of barrenness hurled against her by heresy, rebounded upon the thrower.

Cajetan began and carried forward his reform chiefly by means of detachment from riches, the love of which bad caused many evils in the Church. The Theatines offered to the world a spectacle unknown since the days of the Apostles, pushing their zeal for renouncement so far as not to allow themselves even to beg, but to rely on the spontaneous charity of the faithful. While Luther was denying the very existence of God’s Providence, their heroic trust in It was often rewarded by prodigies.

Who has ever obeyed so well as you, O great Saint, that word of the Gospel: “Be not solicitous therefore saying: What will we eat? or what will we drink? or with what will we be clothed?” (Matthew vi 31). You understand, too, that other divine word: “The workman is worthy of his meat” (Matthew x. 10) and you knew that it applied principally to those who labour in word and doctrine (1 Timothy v. 17). You did not ignore the fact that other sowers of the word had before you founded on that saying the right of their poverty, embraced for God’s sake, to claim at least the bread of alms. Sublime right of souls eager for opprobrium in order to follow Jesus and to satiate their love! But Wisdom, who gives to the desires of the Saints the bent suitable to their times, caused the thirst for humiliation to be overruled in you by the ambition to exalt in your poverty the holy Providence of God. This was needed in an age of renewed paganism, which, even before listening to heresy, seemed to have ceased to trust in God.

Alas! Even of those to whom the Lord had given Himself for their possession in the midst of the children of Israel, it could be truly said that they sought the goods of this world like the heathen. It was your earnest desire, O Cajetan, to justify our Heavenly Father and to prove that He is ever ready to fulfil the promise made by His adorable Son: “Seek therefore the kingdom of God and His justice, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew vi. 33). Circumstances obliged you to begin in this way the reformation of the sanctuary to which you were resolved to devote your life. It was necessary, first, to bring back the members of the holy militia to the spirit of the sacred formula of the ordination of clerks, when, laying aside the spirit of the world together with its livery, they say in the joy of their hearts: “The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and of my cup: it is you, O Lord, that will restore my inheritance to me” (Psalms xv. 5).

The Lord, O Cajetan, acknowledged your zeal and blessed your efforts. Preserve in us the fruit of your labour. The science of sacred rites owes much to your sons. May they prosper in renewed fidelity to the traditions of their father. May your patriarchal blessing ever rest upon the numerous families of Regular Clerks which walk in the footsteps of your own. May all the ministers of holy Church experience the power you still have, of maintaining them in the right path of their holy state, or, if necessary, of bringing them back to it. May the example of your sublime confidence in God teach all Christians that they have a Father in Heaven whose Providence will never fail His children.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Arezzo in Tuscany, the birthday of St. Donatus, bishop and martyr, who among other miraculous deeds, made whole again by his prayers (as is related by the blessed Pope Gregory), a sacred chalice which had been broken by pagans. Being apprehended by the imperial officer Quadratian in the persecution of Julian the Apostate, and refusing to sacrifice to idols, he was struck with the sword and thus consummated his martyrdom. With him suffered also the blessed monk Hilarinus, whose feast is celebrated on the sixteenth of July, when his body was taken to Ostia.

At Rome, the holy martyrs Peter and Julian, with eighteen others.

At Milan, St. Faustus, a soldier, who obtained the palm of martyrdom after many combats in the time of Aurelius Commodus.

At Coino, the passion of the holy martyrs Carpophorus, Exanthus, Cassius, Severinus, Secundus and Licinius, who were beheaded for the confession of Christ.

At Nisibis in Mesopotamia, St. Dometius, a Persian monk, who was stoned to death with two of his disciples under Julian the Apostate.

At Rouen, the holy bishop St. Victricius. While yet a soldier under Julian the Apostate, he threw away his military belt for Christ, and after being subjected by the tribune to many torments, was condemned to capital punishment. But the executioner who had been sent to put him to death being struck blind, and the confessor’s chains being loosened, he made his escape. Afterwards being made bishop, by preaching the word of God he brought to the faith of Christ the barbarous people of Belgic Gaul, and finally died a confessor in peace.

At Chalons in France, St. Donation, bishop.

At Messina in Sicily, St. Albert, confessor, of the Order of Carmelites, renowned for miracles.

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

Thanks be to God.