31 MAY – SAINT PETRONILLA (Virgin)

Petronilla is said to have been a spiritual daughter of Saint Peter, who took her with him to Rome where she became paralysed. Simon Magus having asked him why, if he could perform miracles, he allowed his daughter to remain infirm, Saint Peter answered that “It was expedient for her.” Then he added, “Nevertheless, to show the power of God, she will rise from her bed and walk.” Then he called her, and she rose and was restored to her full health. An officer who greatly admired her beauty sent soldiers to her to ask her to be his wife, but she replied: “If he wants me to marry him, let him not send rough soldiers to woo me, but respectable matrons, and give me time to make up my mind.” But before Flaccus could obtain matrons to convey his offer, Petronilla died.

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

Though the Church makes but a simple commemoration of this illustrious virgin in the office of this day, we will not fail to offer her the homage of our devout veneration. On the twelfth of this month, we kept the feast of the noble virgin and martyr, Flavia Domitilla: it is probable that Aurelia Petronilla was also of the imperial family of the Flavians. The early traditions of the Church speak of her as being the spiritual daughter of the Prince of the Apostles, and though she did not like Domitilla lay down her life for the Faith, yet she offered to Jesus that next richest gift — her virginity. The same venerable authorities tell us also that a Roman Patrician by name Flaccus, having asked her in marriage, she requested three days for consideration during which she confidently besought the aid of her Divine Spouse. Flaccus presented himself on the third day, but found the palace in mourning and her family busy in preparing the funeral obsequies of the young virgin, who had taken her flight to Heaven, as a dove that is startled by an intruder’s approach.

In the eighth century the holy Pope Paul I had the body of Petronilla taken from the Cemetery of Domitilla on the Via Ardeatina. Her relics were found in a marble sarcophagus, the lid of which was adorned at each corner with a dolphin. The Pope had them enshrined in a little church which he built near the south side of the Vatican Basilica. This Church was destroyed in the sixteenth century in consequence of the alterations needed for the building of the new Basilica of Saint Peter, and the relics of Saint Petronilla were translated to one of its altars On the west side. It was but just that she should await her glorious Resurrection under the shadow of the great Apostle who had initiated her in the Faith and prepared her for her eternal nuptials with the Lamb.

* * * * *

Your triumph, Petronilla, is one of our Easter joys! We lovingly venerate your blessed memory. You disdained the pleasures and honours of the world, and your virginal name is one of the first on the list of the Church of Rome, which was your mother. Aid her now by your prayers. Protect those who seek your intercession, and teach us how to celebrate with holy enthusiasm the Solemnities that are soon to gladden us.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Aquileia, the holy martyrs Cantius, Cantian and Cantianilla. For their attachment to the Christian faith they were condemned to capital punishment with their tutor Protus in the time of the emperors Diocletian and Maximian.

At Torres in Sardinia, St. Crescentian, martyr.

At Comana in Pontus, in the time of the emperor Antoninus, St. Hermias, a soldier. Being miraculously delivered from many horrible torments, he converted his executioner to Christ and made him partaker of the crown which he himself obtained first by having his head struck off with the sword.

At Verona, St. Lupicinus, bishop.

At Rome, St. Paschasius, deacon and confessor, who is mentioned by Pope St. Gregory.

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

Thanks be to God.

31 MAY – SUNDAY OF THE HOLY TRINITY

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

On the day of Pentecost the Holy Apostles received, as we have seen, the grace of the Holy Ghost. In accordance with the injunction of their divine Master (Matthew xxviii. 19) they will soon start on their mission of teaching all nations and baptising men in the name of the Holy Trinity. It was but right, then, that the solemnity which is intended to honour the mystery of One God in Three Persons should immediately follow that of Pentecost, with which it has a mysterious connection. And yet, it was not till after many centuries that it was inserted in the Cycle of the Liturgical Year, whose completion is the work of successive ages.

Every homage paid to God by the Church’s Liturgy has the Holy Trinity as its object. Time, as well as eternity, belongs to the Trinity. The Trinity is the scope of all religion. Every day, every hour, belongs to It. The feasts instituted in memory of the mysteries of our Redemption centre on It. The feasts of the Blessed Virgin and the Saints are but so many means for leading us to the praise of the God who is One in essence, and Three in Persons. The Sunday’s Office, in a very special way, gives us each week a most explicit expression of adoration and worship of this mystery, which is the foundation of all others, and the source of all grace.

This explains to us how it was that the Church was so long in instituting a special feast in honour of the Holy Trinity. The ordinary motive for the institution of feasts did not exist in this instance. A feast is the memorial of some fact which took place at some certain time, and of which it is well to perpetuate the remembrance and influence. How could this be applied to the mystery of the Trinity? It was from all eternity, it was before any created being existed, that God lives and reigns, Father, Son and Holy Ghost. If a feast in honour of that Mystery were to be instituted, it could only be by the fixing some one day in the year on which the faithful would assemble for the offering a more than usually solemn tribute of worship to the Mystery of Unity and Trinity in the one same divine Nature.

The idea of such a feast was first conceived by some of those pious and recollected souls who are favoured from on high with a sort of presentiment of the things which the Holy Ghost will achieve at a future period in the Church. So far back as the eighth century, the learned monk Alcuin had had the happy thought of composing a Mass in honour of the mystery of the blessed Trinity. It would seem that he was prompted to this by the Apostle of Germany, Saint Boniface. That this composition is a beautiful one no one will doubt that knows from Alcuin’s writings how full its author was of the spirit of sacred Liturgy. But, after all, it was only a votive Mass, a mere help to private devotion, which no one ever thought would lead to the institution of a feast. This Mass, however, became a great favourite and was gradually circulated through the several Churches. For instance, it was approved of for Germany by the Council of Selingenstadt held in 1022. In that eleventh century, however, a feast properly so called of Holy Trinity had been introduced into one of the Churches of Belgium — the very same that was to have the honour later on of procuring to the Church’s Calendar one of the richest of its Solemnities.

Stephen, Bishop of Liege, solemnly instituted the feast of Holy Trinity for his Church in 920, and had an entire Office composed in honour of the mystery. The Church’s law, which now reserves to the Holy See the institution of any new feast, was not then in existence and Riquier, Stephen’s successor in the See of Liege, kept up what his predecessor had begun.

The feast became gradually adopted. The Benedictine Order took it up from the very first. We find, for instance, in the early part of the eleventh century, that Berno, the Abbot of Reichnaw, was doing all he could to propagate it. At Cluny, also, the feast was established at the commencement of the same century, as we learn from the Ordinarium of that celebrated Monastery drawn up in 1091, and where we find mention of Holy Trinity day as having been instituted long before.

Under the pontificate of Alexander II who reigned from 1061 to 1073, the Church of Rome, which has frequently sanctioned the usages of particular Churches by herself adopting them, was led to pass judgement on this new institution. In one of his Decretals, the Pontiff mentions that the feast was then kept in many places, but that the Church at Rome had not adopted it, and for this reason — that the adorable Trinity is every day of the year unceasingly invoked by the repetition of the words: Gloria Patri et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto; as, likewise, by several other formulas expressive of praise.

Meanwhile, the feast went on gaining ground as we gather from the Micrologns and, in the early part of the twelfth century, we have the learned Abbot Rupert, who may justly be styled a Doctor in liturgical science, explaining the appropriateness of that feast’s institution in these words: “Having celebrated the solemnity of the coming of the Holy Ghost, we, at once, on the Sunday next following, sing the glory of the Holy Trinity. And rightly is this arrangement ordained, for, after the coming of that same Holy Spirit, the faith in, and confession of, the name of Father, Son and Holy Ghost, immediately began to be preached, and believed, and celebrated in Baptism.”

In [England] it was the glorious martyr Saint Thomas of Canterbury that established the feast of Holy Trinity. He introduced it in his Archdiocese in 1162 in memory of his having been consecrated Bishop on the first Sunday after Pentecost. As regards France, we find a Council of Aries held in 1260 under the presidency of Archbishop Florentinus solemnly decreeing, in its sixth canon, the feast of Holy Trinity to be observed with an Octave. The Cistercian Order, which was spread throughout Europe, had ordered it to be celebrated in all its Houses as far back as 1230. Durandus, in his Rationale, gives us grounds for concluding that during the thirteenth century the majority of the Latin Churches kept this feast. Of these Churches, there were some that celebrated it, not on the first, but on the last Sunday, after Pentecost: others kept it twice — once on the Sunday next following the Pentecost Solemnity, and, a second time on the Sunday immediately preceding Advent.

It was evident from all this that the Apostolic See would finally give its sanction to a practice whose universal adoption was being prompted by Christian instinct. John XXII who sat in the Chair of Saint Peter as early as 1334, completed the work by a Decree in which the Church of Rome accepted the feast of Holy Trinity and extended its observance to all Churches.

As to the motive which induced the Church, led, as she is, in all things by the Holy Ghost, to fix one special day in the year for the offering a solemn homage to the blessed Trinity, whereas all our adorations, all our acts of thanksgiving, all our petitions, are ever being presented to It — such motive is to be found in the change which was being introduced at that period into the liturgical Calendar. Up to about the year 1000, the feasts of Saints marked on the general Calendar and universally kept were very few. From that time, they began to be more numerous, and there was evidence that their number would go on increasing. The time would come when the Sunday’s Office, which is specially consecrated to the blessed Trinity, must make way for that of the Saints, as often as one of their feasts occurred on a Sunday. As a sort of compensation for this celebration of the memory of God’s servants on the very day which was sacred to the Holy Trinity, it was considered right that once, at least, in the course of the year, a Sunday should be set apart for the exclusive and direct expression of the worship which the Church pays to the great God, who has vouchsafed to reveal Himself to mankind in His ineffable Unity and in His eternal Trinity.

The very essence of the Christian Faith consists in the knowledge and adoration of One God in Three Persons. This is the Mystery from which all others flow. Our Faith centres in this as in the master-truth of all it knows in this life, and as the infinite object whose vision is to form our eternal happiness. And yet we only know it because it has pleased God to reveal Himself thus to our lowly intelligence which, after all, can never fathom the infinite perfections of that God, who necessarily inhabits light inaccessible (1 Timothy vi. 16). Human reason may, of itself, come to the knowledge of the existence of God as Creator of all beings. It may, by its own innate power, form to itself an idea of His perfections by the study of His works, but the knowledge of God’s intimate being can only come to us by means of His own gracious revelation.

It was God’s good-pleasure to make known to us His essence, in order to bring us into closer union with Himself, and to prepare us, in some way, for that face-to-face vision of Himself which He intends giving us in eternity. But His revelation is gradual: He takes mankind from brightness to brightness, fitting it for the full knowledge and adoration of Unity in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity. During the period preceding the Incarnation of the Eternal Word, God seems intent on inculcating the idea of His Unity, for polytheism was the infectious error of mankind. And every notion of there being a spiritual and sole cause of all things would have been effaced on Earth had not the infinite goodness of that God watched over its preservation.

Not that the Old Testament Books were altogether silent on the Three Divine Persons, whose ineffable relations are eternal. Only, the mysterious passages which spoke of them were not understood by the people at large, whereas in the Christian Church a child of seven will answer them that ask him that, in God, the Three Divine Persons have but one and the same nature, but one and the same Divinity. When the Book of Genesis tells us that God spoke in the plural and said: “Let Us make man to our image and likeness” (Genesis i. 26), the Jew bows down and believes, but he understands not the sacred text. The Christian, on the contrary, who has been enlightened by the complete revelation of God, sees under this expression the Three Persons acting together in the formation of Man. The light of Faith develops the great truth to him, and tells him that, within himself, there is a likeness to the blessed Three in One. Power, Understanding and Will, are three faculties within Him, and yet He Himself is but one being.

In the Books of Proverbs, Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus Solomon speaks, in sublime language, of Him who is Eternal Wisdom. He tells us, and he uses every variety of grandest expression to tell us, of the divine essence of this Wisdom, and of His being a distinct Person in the Godhead — but, how few among the people of Israel could see through the veil? Isaias heard the voice of the Seraphim as they stood around God’s throne. He heard them singing, in alternate choirs, and with a joy intense because eternal, this hymn: “Holy! Holy! Holy! is the Lord! (Isaias vi. 3), but who will explain to men this triple Sanctus, of which the echo is heard here below, when we mortals give praise to our Creator? So again, in the Psalms and the prophetic Books, a flash of light will break suddenly upon us. A brightness of some mysterious Three will dazzle us but it passes away, and obscurity returns seemingly all the more palpable. We have but the sentiment of the divine Unity deeply impressed on our inmost soul, and we adore the Incomprehensible, the Sovereign Being.

The world had to wait for the fullness of time to be completed, and then God would send into this world his Only Son, Begotten of him from all eternity. This His most merciful purpose has been carried out and “the Word made Flesh has dwelt among us” (John i. 14) By seeing His glory, “the glory of the Only Begotten Son of the Father” (John i. 14), we have come to know that in God there is Father and Son. The Son’s mission to our Earth, by the very revelation it gave us of Himself, taught us that God is eternally Father, for whatever is in God is eternal. But for this merciful revelation, which is an anticipation of the light awaiting us in the next life, our knowledge of God would have been too imperfect. It was fitting that there should be some proportion between the light of Faith and that of the vision reserved for the future. It was not enough for man to know that God is One.

So that we now know the Father, from whom comes, as the Apostle tells us, all paternity even on Earth (Ephesians iii. 15). We know Him not only as the creative power which has produced every being outside Himself but, guided as it is by Faith, our soul’s eye respectfully penetrates into the very essence of the Godhead, and there beholds the Father begetting a Son like to Himself. But, in order to teach us the mystery, that Son came down on our Earth. He Himself has told us expressly that “no one knows the Father, but the Son, and He to whom it will please the Son to reveal Him” (Matthew xi. 27). Glory, then, be to the Son who has vouchsafed to show us the Father! And glory to the Father, whom the Son has revealed to us!

The intimate knowledge of God has come to us by the Son, whom the Father, in His love, has given to us (John iii. 16). And this Son of God, who in order to raise up our minds even to His own Divine Nature, has clad Himself by His Incarnation with our Human Nature, has taught us that He and His Father are one (John xvii. 22) — that they are one and the same Essence, in distinction of Persons. One begets, the other is begotten. The One is named Power, the Other, Wisdom or Intelligence.

The Power cannot be without the Intelligence, nor the Intelligence without the Power, in the sovereignly perfect Being: but, both the One, and the Other produce a Third term. The Son, who had been sent by the Father, had ascended into Heaven with the Human Nature which He had united to Himself for all future eternity and lo! the Father and the Son send into this world the Spirit who proceeds from them both. It was a new Gift, and it taught man that the Lord God was in Three Persons. The Spirit, the eternal link of the first Two, is Will; He is Love, in the divine Essence. In God, then, is the fullness of Being, without beginning, without succession, without increase — for there is nothing which He has not. In these Three eternal terms of His uncreated Substance is the Act, pure and infinite.

The sacred Liturgy, whose object is the glorification of God and the commemoration of His works, follows each year the sublime phases of these manifestations by which the Sovereign Lord has made known His whole self to mortals. Under the sombre colours of Advent, we commemorated the period of expectation during which the radiant Triangle sent forth but few of its rays to mankind. The world, during those thousands [of] years, was praying Heaven for a Liberator, a Messiah, and it was God’s own Son that was to be this Liberator, this Messiah. That we might have the full knowledge of the prophecies which foretold Him, it was necessary that He Himself should actually come: “a child was born to us” (Isaias ix. 6), and then we had the key to the Scriptures. When we adored that Son, we adored also the Father who sent Him to us in the Flesh, and to whom He is consubstantial. This Word of Life, whom we have seen, whom we have heard, whom our hands have handled (1 John i. 1), in the Humanity which He deigned to assume, has proved Himself to be truly a Person, a Person distinct from the Father, for One sends, and the Other is sent. In this second Divine Person, we have found our Mediator who has re-united the creation to its Creator. We have found the Redeemer of our sins, the Light of our souls, the Spouse we had so long desired.

Having passed through the mysteries which He Himself wrought, we next celebrated the descent of the Holy Spirit who had been announced as coming to perfect the work of the Son of God. We adored Him, and acknowledged Him to be distinct from the Father and the Son who had sent Him to us with the mission of abiding with us (John xiv. 16) He manifested Himself by divine operations which are especially His own, and were the object of His coming. He is the soul of the Church: He keeps her in the truth taught her by the Son. He is the source, the principle, of the sanctification of our souls and in them He wishes to make His dwelling. In a word, the mystery of the Trinity has become to us not only a dogma made known to our mind by Revelation but, moreover, a practical truth given to us by the unheard of munificence of the Three Divine Persons: the Father, who has adopted us; the Son, whose brethren and joint-heirs we are; and the Holy Ghost, who governs us, and dwells within us.

Although the Sacrifice of the Mass is always celebrated in honour of the blessed Trinity, yet, for this day, the Church, in her chants, prayers and lessons, honours in a more express manner the great mystery which is the foundation of our Christian faith. A commemoration is, however, made of the first Sunday after Pentecost, in order not to interrupt the arrangement of the Liturgy. The colour used by the Church on this feast of Trinity is white, as a sign of joy, as, also, to express the simplicity and purity of the divine essence.

Epistle – Romans xi. 33‒36

O the depth of the riches of the wisdom, and of the knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are His judgements, and how unsearchable His ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counsellor? Or who has first given to Him, and recompense shall be made Him? For of Him, and by Him, and in Him, are all things: to Him be glory, forever. Amen.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

We cannot fix our thoughts upon the divine Judgements and ways without feeling a sort of bewilderment. The eternal and infinite dazzle our weak reason. And yet this same reason of ours acknowledges and confesses them. Now, if even the ways of God with His creatures surpass our understanding, how can we pretend to discover of ourselves the inmost nature of this sovereign Being? And yet, in this in-created essence, we do distinguish the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost from each other, and we glorify them. This comes from the Father having revealed Himself by sending us His Son, the object of His eternal delight. It comes from the Son showing us His own Personality by taking our Flesh, which the Father and the Holy Ghost did not. It comes from the Holy Ghost being sent by the Father and the Son, and His fulfilling the mission He received from them. Our mortal eye respectfully gazes on these divine depths of truth, and our heart is touched at the thought that it is through His benefits to us that He has given us to know Him, and that our knowledge of what He is, came through what He gave us. Let us lovingly prize this Faith, and confidently wait for that happy moment when it will make way for the eternal vision of that which we have believed here below.

Gospel – Matthew xxviii. 18‒20

And Jesus coming, spoke to them saying, “All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Going, therefore, teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the consummation of the world.”

Praise be to you, O Christ.

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

The mystery of the Blessed Trinity which was taught us by the mission of the Son of God into this world, and by the promise of a speedy sending the Holy Spirit, is announced to men by these solemn words uttered by Jesus just before His Acension into Heaven. He had said: “He that will believe, and will he baptised, will he saved” (Mark xvi. 16), but He adds that Baptism is to be given in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Henceforward man must not only confess the unity of God by abjuring a plurality of gods, but he must also adore a Trinity of Persons in Unity of Essence. The great secret of Heaven is now a truth which is published through the whole world.

But, while humbly confessing the God whom we have been taught to know as He is in Himself, we must likewise pay a tribute of eternal gratitude to the ever glorious Trinity. Not only has It vouchsafed to impress Its divine image on our soul by making her to Its own likeness, but, in the supernatural order It has taken possession of our being and raised it to an incalculable pitch of greatness. The Father has adopted us in His Son become Incarnate. The Word illumines our minds with His light. The Holy Ghost has chosen us for His dwelling: and this it is that is expressed by the form of holy Baptism. By those words pronounced over us, together with the pouring out of the water, the whole Trinity took possession of Its creature. We call this sublime marvel to mind as often as we invoke the Three divine Persons, making on ourselves, at the same time, the Sign of the Cross. When our mortal remains are carried into the house of God, there to receive the last blessings and farewell of the Church on Earth, the priest will beseech the Lord “not to enter into judgement with His servant,” and in order to draw down the divine mercy on this Christian who has gone to his eternity, he will say to the Sovereign Judge that this member of the human family “was marked, while in this life, with the sign of the Holy Trinity.” Let us respect this divine impress which we bear on us: it is to be eternal. Hell itself will not be able to blot it out. Let it then be our hope, our dearest title, and let us live for the glory of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Amen.

O INDIVISIBLE Unity! Trinity distinct in one only Nature! Infinite God, who has revealed yourself to men, graciously bear with us while we dare to make our adorations before you, and pour forth our heart’s thanksgiving, feeling ourselves overwhelmed by the brightness of your majesty. Unity divine! Divine Trinity! We have not as yet seen you, but we know that you are, for you have vouchsafed to reveal yourself to us. This Earth on which we are living has the mystery distinctly proclaimed to it every day of its existence — that same august mystery whose vision is the source of the happiness enjoyed by the Blessed, who are glorified, and are united with you in closest union. The human race had to wait long ages before the divine formula was fully revealed — happy we who live in its full possession and can, and do, delightedly proclaim Unity and Trinity in your infinite Essence!

There was a time when an inspired writer spoke an allusion to this grandest of truths, but his words flashed across the mind of his hearers as lightning traverses a cloud, and then leaves it darker than before. “I have not learned Wisdom,” said he, “and have not known the science of saints. Who has ascended up into Heaven? and descended? Who has held the wind (the storm) in his hands? Who has bound up the waters together, as in a garment? Who has raised up all the borders of the earth? What is his name? and what is the name of his Son, if you know?” (Proverbs xxx. 3, 4).

Thanks to your unbounded mercy, Lord God, we now know your name. You are called the Father, and He whom you beget from all eternity is named the Word and Wisdom. We know, too, that from the Father and the Son proceeds the Spirit of love. The Son, clad in our flesh, has dwelt on this Earth and lived among men. Then came down the Spirit, and abides forever with us, till the destinies of the human race are accomplished here below. Therefore is it, that we dare to confess the Unity and the Trinity: for we have heard the divine testimony and have believed, and, “having believed we have spoken with all certainty” (Psalms cxv. 10; 2 Corinthians iv. 13). Accept, then, this our confession, Lord, as you did that of your brave virgin and martyr Cecilia, who when the executioner had thrice struck her neck with the sword, and her noble blood flowed in streams from her wound, expressed her faith as she breathed forth her soul, and confessed, by the position of her hands, the Unity of your Nature and the Trinity of your Persons.

The hymn of your Seraphim has been heard here on Earth: “Holy, Holy, Holy, the Lord God of hosts!” (Isaias vi. 3). We are but mortals. We are not Prophets as was Isaias and yet have we a happiness which he had not — we can repeat the song of those blessed Spirits with fullness of knowledge, and can say to you: “Holy is the Father, Holy is the Son, Holy is the Spirit!” Those same Seraphim flew with two of their wings. With two they hid their face, and with two they covered their feet. So is it with us: strengthened, as we are, by the divine Spirit who has been given to us, we strive to lighten the heavy weight of our frail mortality and raise it aloft on the wings of desire. We hide our sins by repentance and, veiling the weakness of our intellectual vision beneath the cloud of Faith, we receive the light which is infused into our souls. Docile to the revealed word, we submit to its teachings. And it imparts to us not merely a distinct, but even an enlightened knowledge of that mystery, which is the source and centre of all others. The Angels and Saints in Heaven contemplate it with that inexpressible reserve, which the Prophet describes by saying that they hide their face with their wings. We poor mortals have not, and cannot have, the sight of the great truth. But we have the knowledge of it, and this knowledge enlightens our path, and keeps us firm in the truth. We have a dread of presuming to be searchers of your majesty, lest we should be “overwhelmed by glory” (Proverbs xxv. 27). But humbly treasuring up what Heaven has vouchsafed to reveal to us of its secrets, we dare thus to address you:

Glory be to you, divine Essence, that are but one! You are pure Act. You are Being, necessary, infinite, undivided, independent, perfect from all eternity, peaceful and sovereignly happy. In you we acknowledge, together with the inviolable Unity, which is the source of all your perfections, Three Persons distinctly subsistent but, in their production and distinction, the one same Nature is common to all, so that the personal subsistence which constitutes them, and distinguishes them one from the other, causes no inequality between them. Infinite blessedness in this life of the Three Persons! They contemplate in themselves the ineffable perfections of the Essence which unites them together, and the attribute of each of the Three, which divinely animates the nature that nothing can limit or disturb! Wonder of that infinite Essence, when it deigns to act outside itself, by creating beings in its power and its goodness! The Three Persons work then together so that the one which acts in a way which is His special attribute, does so in virtue of a will common to all. May a special love be given to that divine Person who, in the act which is common to the Three, deigns to reveal Himself thus markedly to us creatures and, at the same time, may thanks be given to the other Two, who unite, in one same will, with the Person who vouchsafes to honour us with that special manifestation of Himself!

Glory be to you, O Father, you Ancient of days (Daniel vii. 9). You are unborn, without beginning, but communicating, essentially and necessarily, to the Son and to the Holy Ghost, the godhead which dwells in you! You are God, and you are Father. He who knows you as God, and knows you not as Father, does not know you as you are. You produce, you beget, you test — but it is within your own bosom that you generate, for nothing is God which is outside yourself. You are being, you are power. But you have never been without a Son. You speak to yourself all you are yourself. You explain yourself, and the fruit of the fecundity of your thought, which is equal to yourself, is a second Person coming forth from you: it is your Son, your Word, your uncreated Word. Once did you utter this Word. And your Word is eternal as you yourself are, and as is your thought, of which that Word is the infinite expression. Like the sun which is visible to our eyes and which has never existed, but what its own brightness has existed with it: this brightness is by the sun, it is with the sun. It emanates from it without lessening it, and it never exists as something independent of its source.

Bear, Father, with this weakness of our understanding, which borrows from the beings you have created an image to which to compare you. And so, again, if we study ourselves whom you have created to your own likeness, we find that a thought of our own, that it may be something distinct from our mind, has need of a term, a word, to fix and express it.

O Father! We have been brought to know you by that Son whom you eternally beget, and who has vouchsafed to reveal Himself to us. He has taught us that you are Father, and Himself Son; and that, nevertheless, you are one with Him (John x. 30). When one of His Apostles said to Him: “Lord, show us the Father!” He answered him: “He that sees me, sees the Father” (John xiv. 8, 9). Unity of the divine Nature by which the Son, though distinct from the Father, is not less than what the Father is! Delight of the Father in the Son, by whom He has the knowledge of Himself! Delight of intimate love, of which He spoke to His creature man, on the banks of Jordan and on the top of Thabor! (Matthew iii. 17; 2 Peter i. 17).

Father! We adore you, but we also love you, for a Father should be loved by his children, and we are your children. It is an Apostle that teaches us that all paternity proceeds from you, not in Heaven alone, but on Earth too (Ephesians iii. 15). No one is Father, no one has paternal authority, be it in a family, or in the State, or in the Church, but by you, and in you, and in imitation of you. No, more — you would have us not only be called, but really and truly be your sons (1 John iii. 1), not, indeed by generation, as is your Only Begotten Son, but by an adoption which makes us joint-heirs with Him (Romans viii. 17). This divine Son of yours, speaking of you, says: “I honour my Father” (John viii. 49). We, also, honour you, sovereign Father, Father of infinite majesty, and until eternity dawn on us, we glorify you now from the depths of our misery and exile, uniting our humble praise with that which is presented to you by the Angels, and by the Blessed ones, who are of the same human family as ourselves. May your fatherly eye protect us, may it graciously find pleasure in us your children, whom, as we hope, you have foreseen, whom you have chosen, whom you have called to the faith, and who presume, with the Apostle, to call you the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation (2 Corinthians i. 3).

Glory be to you Son, Word, Wisdom, of the Father! You emanate from His divine essence. He gave you birth before the day-star (Psalms cix. 3) and He said to you: “This day have I begotten you” (Psalms ii. 7), and that day, which has neither eve nor morrow, is eternity. You are Son, and Only Son. And this name expresses one same nature with Him who begets you. It excludes creation, and shows you to be consubstantial with the Father, from whom you come forth, perfectly like Him in all things. And you come forth from the Father, without coming out of the divine essence, being co-eternal with your source: for in God there is nothing new, nothing temporal. Your Sonship is not a dependency, for the Father cannot be without the Son, no more than the Son can be without the Father. If it be a glory in the Father to produce the Son, it is no less a glory in the Son to be the exhaustive term to the generative power of the Father.

O SON of God! You are the Word of the Father. Uncreated Word! You are as intimately in Him, as is His thought: and His thought is His being. It is in you that this His being expresses itself, in its whole infiniteness: it is in you that He knows Himself. You are the spiritual fruit produced by the divine intellect of the Father. The expression of all that He is, whether He keeps you mysteriously in His bosom (John i. 18), or produces you outside Himself. What language can we make use of in order to describe you and your glories, Son of God! The Holy Ghost has vouchsafed to come to our assistance in the writings which He has inspired: and it is with the very expressions He has suggested, that we presume thus to address you: “You are the brightness of the Father’s glory. You are the figure of His substance.” (Hebrews i. 3) “You are the brightness of eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of God’s majesty, and the image that reflects His eternal goodness” (Wisdom vii. 26). We presume, likewise, to say to you what we are taught by the holy Church assembled at Nicea: You are “God of God; Light of Light; true God of true God.” And we add with the Fathers and Doctors: “You are the torch eternally lit by the eternal torch. Your Light lessens nothing of that which communicates Itself to you; neither is your Light inferior, in anything to that from which it is produced.”

But when this ineffable fecundity which gives an eternal Son to the Father, and, to the Father and Son a third term, willed to manifest Itself outside the divine essence. And, not having again the power to produce what is equal to Itself, it deigned to call forth, from nothingness, intellectual and rational nature, as being the nearest approach to its author, and material nature, as being the least removed from nothingness — then, O Only-Begotten Son of God, the intimate production of your Person in the Father’s bosom revealed itself by Creation. It is the Father who made all things: but, it was in Wisdom, that is, in you, that He made all (Psalms ciii. 24). This mission of working which you received from the Father is a consequence of the eternal generation by which He produces you from Himself. You came forth from your mysterious rest, and creatures, visible and invisible, came forth at your bidding out of nothing. Acting in closest union with the Father, you poured out on the worlds you created somewhat of that beauty and harmony of which you are the image in the divine essence. And yet, your mission was not at an end when creation was completed. Angels and Men, who were intellectual and free beings, were destined for the eternal vision and possession of God. The mere natural order could not suffice for these two classes of your creatures: a supernatural way had to be prepared for them by which they might be brought to their last end. You, Only-Begotten Son of God, are this “Way.” By yourself assuming human nature, you united yourself to your own work, you raised Angel and Man up to God, and, by your Human Nature, you showed yourself as the supreme type of the Creation which the Father had effected by you. Unspeakable mystery, you are the uncreated Word and, at the same time, you are the first-born of every creature (Colossians i. 15), not, indeed, to appear until your time should come and yet preceding, in the divine mind and intention, all created beings, all of which were to be created, in order that they might be your subjects.

The human race, though destined to possess you, in its midst, as its divine intermediary, rebelled against its God by sin, and by sin was plunged into the abyss of death. Who could raise it up again? Who could restore it to the sublime destiny it had forfeited? You alone, Only-Begotten Son of the Father! It was what we never could have hoped for, but this God so loved the world as to give His Only-Begotten Son (John iii. 16), to be not only the Mediator, but the Redeemer, too, of us all. You, our first-born, asked your Father to restore your inheritance to you (Psalms xv. 5). You had to purchase back this inheritance.

Then did the Father entrust you with the mission of Saviour to our lost race. Your Blood, shed on the Cross, was our ransom, and by it we were born again to God and restored to our lost privileges. Therefore, Son of God, we, your redeemed, glory in calling you Our Lord. Having thus delivered us from death, and cleansed us from sin, you vouchsafed to restore us to all the grand things we had lost for, henceforth, you are our Head, and we are your members. You are King, and we your happy subjects. You are Shepherd, and we the sheep of your one fold. You are Spouse, and the Church, our Mother, is your Bride. You are the living Bread come down from heaven, and we are your guests. Son of God! Emmanuel! Son of Man! Blessed be the Father that sent you, but blessed also be you who fulfilled the mission He gave you, and has been pleased to say, that your “delight is to be with the children of men!” (Proverbs viii. 31).

GLORY be to you, Holy Spirit, who eternally emanate from the Father and the Son in the unity of the divine substance! The eternal Act, by which the Father knows Himself, produces the Son, who is the infinite image of the Father: the Father is full of love for this brightness which eternally proceeds from Himself, and the Son, contemplating the source from which He forever comes, conceives for this source a love as great as that with which Himself is loved. What language could describe this mutual ardour and aspiration, which is the attraction and tendency of one Person to Another in the eternally immovable Essence! You are this Love, divine Spirit, that proceeds from the Father and the Son as from one same principle. You are distinct from Both, and yet are the bond that unites them in the ineffable delights of the Godhead. You are living Love, personal Love, proceeding from the Father by the Son, the final term which completes the divine Nature, and eternally perfects the Trinity. In the inaccessible bosom of the great God, your Personality comes to you both from the Father, of whom you are the expression by a second production (John xv. 26), and from the Son, who, receiving of the Father, gives you of His own (John xvi. 14, 15), for the infinite Love which unites them is of Both Persons, and not of one alone. The Father was never without the Son, and the Son never without the Father. So, likewise, the Father and Son have never been without you, Holy Spirit! Eternally have they loved, and you are the infinite Love which exists between them, and to which they communicate their Godhead. Your Procession from Both exhausts the productive power of the increated Essence and thus are the divine Persons Three in number, all that is outside Them, is created being.

In the divine Essence, there is not only Power and Intelligence, but, also and necessarily there is Will, from which action follows. Will and Love are one and the same thing, and you, divine Spirit, are this Will, this Love. When the glorious Trinity works outside itself, the act conceived by the Father, and expressed by the Son, is accomplished by you. By you, likewise, the Love, which the Father and Son have for each other, and which is personified in you, is extended to beings which are to be created. It is by His Word that the Father knows them. It is by you, divine Love, O Holy Spirit, that He loves them and thus, all creation proceeds from the divine goodness.

Emanating as you do from the Father and the Son, you are sent by Both to us creatures, and yet so as not to lose thereby the equality you have from all eternity with Them. The Son, when sent by the Father, clad Himself, once forever, with our human nature and His Person, by the works which are peculiarly His own, is shown to us as distinct from that of the Father. So, likewise, Holy Spirit, we recognise you as distinct from the Father and the Son by your coming down to fulfil in our regard, the mission given to you by Both. It was you that inspired the Prophets (2 Peter i. 21), you that overshadowed Mary in the divine Incarnation (Luke i. 35), you that rested on the flower of Jesse (Isaias xi. 2), you that led Jesus into the desert (Luke iv. 1), you that glorified Him by miracles (Matthew xii. 28). The Church, His Bride, receives you, and you teach her all truth (John xvi. 13), and you abide in her as her devoted friend, even to the very end of time (John xiv. 16). Our souls are signed with your seal (Ephesians i. 13, iv. 30) and you quicken them with supernatural life (Galatians v. 25). You dwell even in our bodies, making them your temple (1 Corinthians vi. 19). In a word, you are to us the Gift of God, and the fountain springing up even into life everlasting (John, iv. 14; vii. 38, 39. May special thanks be given to you, Holy Spirit, for the special works you accomplish in our favour!

And now, having adored each of the divine Persons, and blessed each for the favours He has bestowed on this world, we again dare to fix our unworthy gaze on that Trinity of Majesty which exists in the Unity of the divine Essence. Sovereign Lord, we again confess what you have taught us but we confess it in the words of your servant Augustine: “They are not more than Three: One that loves Him who is from Him; and One that loves Him from whom He is; and One who is that very Love”. But we have still a debt of gratitude to pay for that unspeakable favour of yours by which, blessed Trinity, you have vouchsafed to mark us with the image of yourself. Having resolved from all eternity to admit us into fellowship with yourself (1 John i. 3), you have prepared us for according to a type taken from your own divine Nature (Genesis i. 27). There are three powers in our one soul. This tells us that it was you who gave us our existence, and yet this likeness to yourself, which is the glory of our natural being, was but a preparation for further purposes of your generous love towards us. After having bestowed on us this natural being, it pleased you to decree, sacred Trinity, that a supernatural one should also be imparted to us. When the fullness of time had come, the Father sends us His Son, and this uncreated Word brings light to our understanding: the Father and the Son send us the Spirit, and the Spirit brings love to our will: and the Father, who cannot be sent, comes of Himself, and gives Himself to our soul, giving her a power beyond her own strength. It is in holy Baptism, in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, that is produced, in the Christian, this work of the Three divine Persons which is so admirably in keeping with the faculties of our soul. And these faculties are but an outline of the masterpiece which the supernatural action of God can alone complete.

Blessed union by which God is in man, and man is in God! Union that brings us to adoption by the Father, to brotherhood with the Son, to our eternal inheritance! But, how has this indwelling of God in His creature been formed? Gratuitously, by God’s eternal love. And, how long will it last? Forever, unless man himself refuse to give love for love. Mortal sin admitted into the soul, the divine indwelling is at an end: the very moment that sanctifying grace is lost, the Three divine Persons who had taken up their abode in that soul (John xiv. 23) and were united with her, abandon her. God would be no longer in her, save by His immensity, but the soul would not possess Him as she did before. Then would Satan set up again his wretched kingdom within her, the kingdom of his vile trinity, concupiscence of the flesh, concupiscence of the eyes, and pride of life (2 John ii. 16). Woe to the man who would dare to defy his God by such rebellion, and put evil in the place of infinite good! Hell and eternal torments are the consequences of the creature’s contempt of his Creator. God is a jealous God. If we drive Him from the dwelling of our souls, the deep abyss must be our everlasting abode.

But is this rupture beyond the hope of reconciliation? Yes, as far as sinful man’s power is concerned, for he can never of himself recover his position with the blessed Trinity, which God’s gratuitous bounty had prepared and His incomprehensible goodness achieved. But, as the Church teaches us in her Liturgy, God never shows His power more than when He has pity on a sinner and pardons Him: it is this powerful mercy of God which can work the prodigy of a reconciliation, and He really does work it, as often as a sinner is converted. When the august Trinity deigns to return into the soul of repentant man, the Angels and Saints in Heaven are filled with joy, as the Gospel assures us (Luke xv. 10), for the Father, Son and Holy Ghost have testified their love and sought their glory by making him just, who had been a sinner; by coming again to dwell in this lost sheep; in this prodigal, who had, but a few days before, been tending swine; in this thief who, but just now, had been insulting on the Cross, together with his fellow culprit, the innocent Crucified.

Adoration, then, and love, be to you, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, perfect Trinity that has vouchsafed to reveal yourself to mankind; eternal and infinite Unity, that has delivered our forefathers from the yoke of their false gods! Glory be to you, as it was in the beginning, before any creature existed; as it is now, at this very time, while we are living in the hope of that true life which consists in seeing you face-to-face; and as it will forever be, in those everlasting ages when a blissful eternity will have united us in the bosom of your infinite Majesty. Amen.

30 MAY – SAINT FELIX I (Pope and Martyr)

Felix, a Roman by birth, and son of Constantius, governed the Church during the reign of the emperor Aurelian. He decreed that the Mass should be celebrated upon the shrines and tombs of the martyrs. He held two ordinations in the month of December and made 9 priests, 5 deacons and 5 bishops. He was crowned with martyrdom, and was buried on the Via Aurelia in a Basilica which he himself had built and dedicated. He ruled 2 years, 4 months and 29 days.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The holy Popes of the primitive ages of the Church abound during these last days of our Paschal Season. Today we have Felix I, a martyr of the persecution under Aurelian in the third century. His Acts have been lost, with the exception of this one detail: that he proclaimed the dogma of the Incarnation with admirable precision in a Letter addressed to the Church of Alexandria, a passage of which was read, with much applause, at the two Ecumenical Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon. We also learn from a law he passed for these troubled times of the Church, that this holy Pontiff was zealous in procuring for the martyrs the honour that is due to them. He decreed that the Holy Sacrifice should be offered up on their tombs. The Church has kept up a remnant of this law by requiring that all altars, whether fixed or portable, must have amongst the relics that are placed in them a portion of some belonging to the martyrs.

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You, O holy Pontiff, imitated your Divine Master in His death, for you gave your life for your sheep. Like Him, too, you are to rise from your tomb and your happy soul will be reunited to its body which suffered death in testimony of the truth you proclaimed at Rome. Jesus is the first-born of the dead (Apocalypse i. 5). You followed Him in His Passion, you will follow Him in His Resurrection. Your body was laid in those venerable vaults which the piety of early Christians honoured with the appellation of Cemeteries, a word which signifies a place in which to sleep. You, O Felix, will awaken on that great day on which the Pasch is to receive its last and perfect fulfilment: pray that we also may then share with you in that happy Resurrection. Obtain for us that we may be faithful to the graces received in this year’s Easter, and prepare us for the visit of the Holy Ghost who is soon to descend upon us, that he may give stability to the work that has been achieved in our souls by our merciful Saviour.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYOLOGY:

At Torres in Sardinia, the holy martyrs Gabinus and Crispulus.

At Antioch, the Saints Sycus and Palatinus who endured many torments for the name of Christ.

At Ravenna, St. Exuperantius, bishop and confessor.

At Pavia, St. Anastasius, bishop.

At Caesarea in Cappadocia, the Saints Basil and his wife Emmelia, parents of St. Basil the Great, who lived in exile in the fastnesses of Pontus during the reign of Galerius Maximian, and after the persecution rested in peace, leaving their children the heirs of their virtues.

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

Thanks be to God.

30 MAY – SAINT FERDINAND III OF CASTILE (King and Confessor)

Ferdinand was born in about 1201 to King Alfonso IX of León and his second wife Queen Berenguela of Castile, at the Monastery of Valparaíso (Peleas de Arriba, now the Province of Zamora). He showed so much prudence in his youth that his mother resigned her kingdom in his favour. Ferdinand had all the virtues becoming to a king: magnanimity, clemency, justice and zeal for Catholic faith and worship, which he ardently defended and propagated. Ferdinand forbade heretics to settle in his kingdom and he built, endowed and dedicated churches in Cordova, Jaen, Seville and other cities rescued from the Moors. He restored the Cathedrals of Toledo, Burgos and other cities. He also he levied powerful armies in the kingdom of Castile and Leon and each year engaged in battles with the Saracens.

Ferdinand secured victory by the prayers he offered up to God. He used to chastise his body with disciplines and a rough hair-shirt, with the intention of rendering God propitious. By so doing he gained extraordinary victories over the mighty armies of the Moors, and, after taking possession of Jaen, Cordova and Murcia, and making a tributary of the kingdom of Granada, he restored many cities to the Christian religion and to Spain. He led his victorious standard before Seville, the capital of Baeza, being, as it is related, urged thereto by Saint Isidore, who had formerly been bishop of that city, and who appeared to him in a vision. Ferdinand was miraculously aided during that siege: the Muslims had stretched an iron chain across the Guadalquiver to block up the passage but there arose a violent wind, and one of the royal ships was, by the king's order, sent against the chain, which broke with so much violence that it was carried far beyond, and bore down a bridge of boats. The Moors lost all hope and the city surrendered. Ferdinand attributed all these victories to the patronage of the Blessed Virgin Mary, whose image he always had in his camp, and honoured it with much devotion.

Having taken Seville, Ferdinand’s first thoughts were directed to religion. He immediately caused the mosque of the Saracens to be purified and dedicated as a Christian church, having provided it with an archiepiscopal See, richly endowed, as also with a well-appointed college of Canons and dignitaries. He built several other churches and monasteries in Seville. While engaged in these holy works, he was preparing to pass over to Africa to crush the Muslim empire but before he could do so he died. When death approached he fastened a cord round his neck, prostrated on the ground, and, shedding abundant tears, adored the Blessed Sacrament which was brought to him as Viaticum. Having received it in admirable dispositions of reverence, humility and faith, he slept in the Lord in 1252. His body, which remained incorrupt for many centuries is buried in the Cathedral Church of Seville.

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

During the Season consecrated to the mystery of our Emmanuel’s birth we saw standing near His crib the Blessed Emperor Charlemagne. Crowned with the imperial diadem, and with a sword in his hand, he seemed to be watching over the babe whose first worshippers were shepherds. And now, near the glorious sepulchre, which was first visited by Magdalene and her companions, we perceive a King — Ferdinand the Victorious —wearing a crown and keeping guard with his valiant sword —the terror of the Saracen.

Catholic Spain is personified in her Ferdinand. His mother Berengera was sister to Blanche the mother of Saint Louis of France. In order to form “the Catholic Kingdom,” there was needed one of our Lord’s Apostles — Saint James the Great; there was needed a formidable trial —the Saracen invasion which deluged the Peninsula; there was needed a chivalrous resistance, which lasted eight hundred years, and by which Spain regained her glory and her freedom. Saint Ferdinand is the worthy representative of the brave heroes who drove out the Moors from their fatherland and made her what she is: but he had the virtues of a saint, as well as the courage of a soldier.

His life was one of exploits, and each was a victory. Cordova, the city of the Caliphs, was conquered by this warrior Saint. At once, its Alhambra ceased to be a palace of Mahometan effeminacy and crime. Its splendid Mosque was consecrated to the Divine Service, and afterwards became the Cathedral of the city. The followers of Mahomet had robbed the Church of Saint James at Compostella of its bells, and had them brought in triumph to Cordova. Ferdinand ordered them to be carried there again, on the backs of the Moors.

After a siege of 16 months, Seville also fell into Ferdinand’s hands. Its fortifications consisted of a double wall, with 166 towers. The Christian army was weak in numbers. The Saracens fought with incredible courage, and had the advantages of position and tact on their part, but the Crescent was to be eclipsed by the Cross. Ferdinand gave the Saracens a month to evacuate the city and territory. Three hundred thousand withdrew to Xeres, and a hundred thousand passed over into Africa. The brave Moorish General, when taking his last look at the city, wept and said to his officers: “None but a Saint could, with such a small force, have made himself master of so strong and well-manned a place.”

We will not enumerate the other victories gained by our Saint. The Moors foresaw that the result would be their total expulsion from the Peninsula. But this was not all that Ferdinand aimed at: he even intended to invade Africa, and thus crush the Muslim power forever. The noble project was prevented by his death, which took place in the fifty-third year of his age.

He always looked on himself as the humble instrument of God’s designs, and zealously laboured to accomplish them. Though most austere towards himself, he was a father in his compassion for his people, and was one day heard to say: “I am more afraid of the curse of one poor woman, than of all the Saracen armies together.” He richly endowed the churches which he built in Spain. His devotion to the Holy Mother of God was most tender, and he used to call her his Lady: in return, Mary procured him victory in all his battles, and kept away all pestilence and famine from the country during his entire reign, which, as the contemporary chroniclers observe, was an evident miracle, considering the circumstances of the age and period. The whole life of our Saint was a series of happiness and success, whereas, the life of that other admirable King, Saint Louis of France, was one of almost uninterrupted misfortune, as though God would give to the world, in these two Saints a model of courage in adversity, and an example of humility in prosperity. They form unitedly a complete picture of what human life is, regenerated as it has now been by our Jesus, in whom we adore both the humiliations of the Cross and the glories of the Resurrection. What happy times were those, when God chose kings by which to teach mankind such sublime lessons!

One feels curious to know how such a man, such a King as Ferdinand, would take death when it came upon him. When it came, he was in his fifty-fourth year. The time approached for his receiving the Holy Viaticum. As soon as the priest entered the room with the Blessed Sacrament, the holy King got out of bed, prostrated himself in adoration and, humbly putting a cord round his neck, received the Sacred Host. This done, and feeling that he was on the verge of eternity, he ordered his attendants to remove from him every sign of royalty, and called his sons round his bed. Addressing himself to the eldest, who was Alphonsus the Good, he entrusted him with the care of his brothers, and reminded him of the duties he owed to his subjects and soldiers. He then added these words: “My son, you see what armies, and possessions, and subjects, you have, more than any other Christian king: make a proper use of these advantages, and, having the power, be and do good. You are now master of the country which the Moors took in times past from King Rodriguez. If you keep the kingdom in the state in which I now leave it to you, you will be as I have been, a good king, which you will not be, if you allow any portion of it to be lost.”

As his end drew near, the dying King was favoured with an apparition from Heaven. He thanked God for granting him that consolation, and then asked for the blessed candle. But before taking it in his hand, he raised up his eyes to Heaven and said: “You, O Lord, have given me the kingdom which I should not otherwise have had. You have given me more honour and power than I deserved: receive my thanks! I give you back this kingdom, which I have increased as far as I was able. I also commend my soul into your hands!" He then asked pardon of the by-standers, begging them to overlook any offence that he might have committed against them. The whole court was present and, with tears, asked the Saint to forgive them. The holy King then took the blessed candle into his hands, and raising it up towards heaven, said: “Lord Jesus Christ! My Redeemer! Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I return to the earth. Lord, receive my soul! and, through the merits of your most holy Passion, deign to admit it among those of your servants!” Having said this, he gave back the candle and asked the bishops and priests who were present to recite the Litanies, which being ended, he bade them sing the Te Deum. When the Hymn was finished, he bowed down his head, closed his eyes, and calmly expired.

Thus died those men whose glorious works were the result of their Faith, and who looked on themselves as only sent into this world that they might serve Christ and labour to propagate His kingdom. It was they that gave Europe its highest glory: they made the Gospel its first law, and based its Constitution on the Canons of the Church. It is now governed by a very different standard. It is paying dearly for the change, and is being drifted rapidly to dissolution and ruin.

* * * * *

BY delivering your people from the yoke of the Infidel, you, O Ferdinand, imitated our Risen Jesus who rescued us from death and restored us to the life we had lost. Your conquests were not like those of this world’s conquerors, who have no other aim than the satisfying their own and their peoples’ pride. Your ambition was to deliver your people from an oppression which had weighed heavily on them for long ages. Your object was to save them from the danger of apostasy, which they incurred by being under the Moorish yoke. Champion of Christ! It was for His dear sake you laid siege to the Saracen cities. His banner was yours, and your first anxiety was to spread His kingdom. He, in return, blessed you in all your your battles, and made you ever victorious.

Your mission, Ferdinand, was to form for our God a nation which has been honoured by holy Church above all others with the glorious name of the “Catholic Kingdom.” Happy Spain which by her perseverance and courage broke the Mussulman yoke, that still weighs down the other countries which it made its prey! Happy Spain which repelled the invasion of Protestantism and by this preserved the Faith, which both saves souls and constitutes a nation’s strongest power! Pray for your country, O saintly King! False doctrines and treacherous influences are now rife within her, and many of her children have been led astray. Never permit her to injure, by cowardly compromise, that holy Faith which has been her grandest glory and safeguard. Frustrate the secret plots which are working to undermine her Catholicity. Keep up within her her old hatred of heresy, and maintain her in the rank she holds among Catholic nations. Unity in faith and worship may still save her from the abyss into which so many other countries have fallen. O holy King! Save once more the land that God entrusted to your keeping, and which you restored to Him with such humble gratitude when you were about to change your earthly for a heavenly crown. You are still her beloved protector. Hasten then to her aid!

30 MAY – EMBER SATURDAY IN PENTECOST WEEK

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

We have been contemplating with grateful hearts the inexpressible devotedness, the divine untiredness, with which the Holy Ghost fulfils His mission in the souls of men. We have something still to add to our considerations, in order to have anything like a true idea of the wonders wrought by the Divine Guest when the heart raises no obstacles. And first of all, we deem it necessary to say a word to those Christians who — after hearing what we have said regarding the prodigies of power and love of the Divine Spirit, and the sublime mystery of His presence among us — might be tempted to fear lest all this may, in some degree, tend to make us forget our dearest Jesus who, being in the form of God and equal to God, emptied Himself being made in the likeness of man, and in habit found as man (Philippians i. 6).

The superficial knowledge of their religion is the cause of so many Christians having very vague notions about the Holy Ghost and His special workings in the Church and the souls of men. You will find these same individuals well-instructed upon the mysteries of the Incarnation and Redemption. You will find them really devout in their honouring the Son of God: but, judging from their conduct, you would say that they have put off their knowing and honouring the Holy Ghost until they get to Heaven.

We would, therefore, tell them that the mission of this Divine Spirit, far from being likely to make us forget what we owe to our Saviour, is the grandest gift bestowed on us by this our Redeemer. Who is it that produces and keeps up within us the loving and meritorious remembrance of our Jesus’ mysteries? It is the Holy Ghost, who only dwells in our hearts for the purpose of forming Christ, the new man, within us, to the end that we may be united with Him forever as His members, Consequently, the love we bear to our Jesus is inseparable from that we bear to the Holy Ghost. And the love we have for this Divine Spirit closely unites us with the Son of God from whom He, (the Spirit) proceeds and is given to us. When we meditate on the sufferings of Jesus we are excited to feelings of affectionate compassion, and it ought to be so. But how comes it that we never think or, if we think, that we never grieve over the resistances, the slights, the disloyalties, which the Holy Ghost is every day receiving from ourselves and others? It is indeed most true that we are children of our heavenly Father: but why should we forget the immense debt we owe to the other two Divine Persons, who have come down from Heaven to serve us, and at the risk of our not being grateful to them for it!

After this short, but almost necessary, digression, we will continue our reflections on the workings of the Holy Ghost in the soul of man. As we were just saying, His aim is to form Christ within us by the imitation of this our Redeemer’s sentiments and actions. Who better than this Divine Spirit knows the Jesus whose humanity He formed in Mary’s womb? The Jesus in whom He dwelt so unreservedly? Whom He aided and directed in all things, and that with a fullness of grace becoming the dignity of the human nature which was personally united with the Divinity? We repeat, His object is to reproduce in our humble persons a faithful copy of Jesus, as far as our fallen nature will permit so grand a work to be realised.

The Holy Spirit produces the most noble results in this His work, which is one truly worthy of a God. We have already seen how He wins from sin and Satan the creatures purchased by Christ. Now let us consider Him achieving His victories in what the Apostle so magnificently calls the “consummation of the Saints” (Ephesians iv. 12). He takes them as he finds them, that is, fallen children of Adam. He first applies to them the ordinary means of sanctification, though He intends to carry them to extraordinary virtue. The courage with which He carries on his work is truly divine. He has to deal with nature, fallen indeed and tainted with a poison which is mortal, but a nature which retains some resemblance to its Creator. It is a ruin, but still it is an image. The Spirit, then, has to destroy what there is of corruption and defilement. At the same time, He has to purify and foster what has not been irremediably affected by the poison. The case requires an infinite care. He knows where and when to cut or burn, and, what is very wonderful, He makes the invalid Himself Help him to apply the saving remedies. Just as He does not save the sinner without the sinner’s sharing in the work, so neither does He sanctify the Saint, without the Saint’s co-operation. But He inspirits and encourages him by countless touches of grace so that, while corrupt nature keeps gradually losing ground in the soul, the healthy parts are being transformed into Christ, and finally the whole man is under the perfect mastery of grace.

The virtues are neither inactive nor half-formed in such a Christian as this. And each day they grow more and more vigorous. The Holy Spirit suffers none of them to lag behind, for He is unceasingly showing His disciple the great original whom he is to copy, namely Jesus, in whom are all the virtues and all perfectly. There are times when He makes the soul feel her own weakness in order that she may humble herself. He permits her to feel certain repugnances and temptations — but these are precisely the seasons in which He evinces the most watchful solicitude. The soul must act, and she must suffer. The Holy Ghost loves her with extreme tenderness, and will never permit her to be tried above her strength. Oh what a wonderful work is this, to enable a poor fallen creature to be a Saint! Of course, there will be moments of discouragement, there may be defects now and then. But the work goes on in spite of all, for the Divine Spirit keeps up within the soul an unchanging love which is ever burning out the dross, while its own bright flame is every day gaining new intensity and beauty.

The human element at last disappears — it is Christ who lives in this new man, and this man lives in Christ (Galatians ii. 20). His life is one of prayer, for it is in prayer that he finds union with his Jesus. The more he prays, the closer is the bond. The Holy Ghost is continually opening out new charms of truth to him in order to encourage him to seek his sovereign good in prayer. He has made it the mystic ladder. It rests on Earth, but its summit reaches to high Heaven. Who could tell the favours bestowed by God on a soul that has broken every tie of self-love and interest that, with oneness of purpose and energy, she may see and enjoy her Lord and lose herself eternally in His infinite beauty! The whole Blessed Trinity is devoted to such a soul: the Father embraces her in His paternal affection, the Son has no reserves of His love towards her, the Holy Ghost is ever working within her, enlightening and consoling her.

The citizens of Heaven, with their wonted interest in all that concerns us mortals — so that they keep a feast of joy at the conversion of one poor sinner (Luke xv. 7) — are enraptured at the lovely sight of a Saint. They yearn over him with an indescribable love. They sing a loud hymn of praise to the Holy Ghost who has produced such a masterpiece of perfection out of such materials as fallen nature yields. At times, the Blessed Mother evinces her joy by appearing to this her new-born child. The Angels show themselves to this brother on whom they look as worthy to be throned among them. The Saints treat him with an intimacy which tells him that they expect him to be soon their companion in the home of everlasting glory. Is it to be wondered at, that this dear child of the Holy Ghost should be sometimes allowed to stay the laws of nature, and work miracles in favour of his suffering or necessitous fellow mortals? Does he not love them with an affection which springs from the love which he has for God, and which is not shackled by the egotism of a heart divided between the world and the Creator?

Nor must we forget to speak of the grandest feature in the soul thus perfected by the Holy Ghost. Men of the world may scoff, and frivolous spirits may feel sceptical, at what we are going to say. It is not the less true, and, thank God, it is not so rare as some among us pretend. It evinces the power of the merits won for us by our Redeemer. It testifies the greatness of His love for mankind. It manifests the divine energy of the Holy Ghost in the souls that put no obstacles to His working within them. The soul, then, that we have been describing, is called to an Espousal with Jesus, not only in Heaven, but now and on this Earth of exile. Jesus loves, as only a God can, the Spouse He has redeemed with His Blood. And this Spouse is not only the beloved Church: it is this soul of whom we are speaking, who was once mere nothingness, whose present existence is not known by the world — and yet her beauty is such that her Creator deigns to say that He, the King, greatly desires it (Psalms xliv. 12). He, together with the Holy Ghost, has wrought this beauty within her, and He wishes her to be all His. Then is achieved, by the Holy Spirit, and in favour of an individual soul, the same mystery that we have seen accomplished in the Church herself: He prepares her, He establishes her in unity, He fixes her in truth, He perfects her in sanctity. This done, “the Spirit and the Bride say: Come!” (Apocalypse xxii. 17).

It would take a volume to describe the workings of the Holy Ghost in the Saints, and we are obliged to be satisfied with this hurried and imperfect sketch. The little we have said was a necessity, in order that we might give a general idea of the mission of the Holy Ghost on Earth, such as we are taught it is by the words of Sacred Scripture, and by the principles of dogmatic and mystical theology. What we have said today will, moreover, assist our readers in their study and appreciation of the Saints. In the course of the Liturgical Year, during which the names and actions of the Saints have been so frequently proclaimed and celebrated by the Church herself, it was important to find an occasion for honouring the Sanctifying Spirit: and surely Pentecost was the most fitting season for our saying what we have.

This is the last day of Paschal Time. It is the last of the Pentecost Octave. We must not allow it to pass without our offering to the Queen of Saints the homage that is so justly her due, and without presenting our adoration and praise to the Holy Ghost for all the glorious things He has achieved in her.

After the sacred Humanity of our Redeemer, which received from this Holy Spirit every gift that could make it worthy, as far as a creature can be, of the Divine Nature to which the Incarnation united it — Mary’s soul and whole being were adorned with grace above all other creatures together. It could not but be so, as must be evident to us if we reflect for a moment on the meaning of a “Mother of God.” Mary in her single self forms a world apart in the order of grace. She alone was, for a short time, the Church of Jesus. The Holy Spirit was at first sent for her alone, and He filled her with Grace from the instant of her Immaculate Conception. That Grace developed itself in her by the continuous action of the Holy Ghost, until at length she became worthy, as far as a creature could be, of conceiving and giving birth to the very Son of God, who became thus the Son of Mary. During these days of Pentecost we have seen the new gifts with which the Divine Spirit prepared her for her new office. Is it possible for us her children to think of all these things, and not be ardent in our admiration of her? Or not be overflowing with gratitude for the august Paraclete who has deigned to show such munificence to this our own matchless Mother?

At the same time, we cannot help being overpowered with delight at the thought of the perfection with which this favourite of the Holy Spirit corresponded with the graces she received from Him. Not one was lost, not one was fruitless, as is sometimes the case with even the holiest souls. At her very commencement, she was as the rising morn (Canticles vi. 9). From that time, her sanctity gradually mounted to the midday of its perfection, and that midday was to have no setting. Even before the Archangel announced to her that she was to conceive the Son of God in her chaste womb, she had already conceived Him in her soul, as the Holy Fathers teach us. The Eternal Word loved her as His Spouse even before He conferred on her the honour of being His Mother. If Jesus could say of a soul that had needed regeneration: “They that seek me, will find me in the heart of Grertrude” — what must have been the harmony of soul existing between Him and His Blessed Mother? How close must have been their union? Trials of the severest kind awaited her in this world. She bore them all with heroic fortitude and when the hour came for her to unite her own sacrifice with that made by her Son, she was ready. After Jesus’ Ascension, the Holy Ghost descended upon her. He opened out to her a new career which would require her being an exile for many long years from the Heaven where her Son was reigning — she did not hesitate to accept the bitter chalice thus offered to her. She proved herself to be indeed the Handmaid of the Lord, desirous, above all other things, to do His will in every tittle.

So that the triumph of the Holy Ghost in Mary’s person was of the most perfect kind: however grand might be His gifts, she worthily corresponded with them all. The sublime office of Mother of God to which she was called entitled her to graces in keeping with such a dignity. She received them and turned them to the richest account. In return for her fidelity, as also in consideration of her incomparable dignity, the Holy Ghost allotted to Mary the place she well merited in the great work He had come to do, namely, the Consummation of the Saints and the formation of the Church, the Body of Christ (Ephesians iv. 12). Her Divine Son is the Head of the immense Body of the Faithful. He gives it unity, but she herself represents the neck by which life and motion are communicated from the Head to the rest of the Body. Jesus is the chief agent, but He acts on each member through Mary. Her union with the Incarnate Word is immediate on account of her being to Him what no other creature could be. But with regard to us, the graces and favours, the light and consolation, which we receive from our Divine Head, come to us through Mary.

Hence the influence of this Blessed Mother on the Church in general, and on each individual in particular. She unites us to her Son, and He unites us to the Divinity. The Father gave us His Son. The Son chose a Mother from among His creatures. And the Holy Ghost, by giving fruitfulness to this Virgin-Mother, perfected the union of Creatures with their Creator. The end God proposed in creation, was to effect this union. And now that the Son is glorified, and the Holy Ghost is come, we understand the whole divine plan. More favoured than those who lived before the descent of the Divine Spirit, we have, not only in promise, but in reality, a brother who is crowned with the diadem of the divinity; a Paraclete who is to abide with us forever, to enlighten our path and strengthen us; a Mother, whose intercession is all-powerful; a Church, a second Mother, by and from whom we receive all these blessings.

The series of the Mysteries is now completed and the Moveable Cycle of the Liturgy has come to its close. We first passed, during Advent, the four weeks which represented the [thousands of] years spent by mankind in entreaties to the Eternal Father that He would send His Son. Our Emmanuel at length came down. We shared in the joys of his Birth, in the dolours of His Passion, in the glory of His Resurrection, in the triumph of His Ascension. Lastly, we have witnessed the descent of the Holy Ghost on us, and we know that He is to abide with us to the last. Holy Church has assisted us throughout the whole of this sublime drama which contains the work of our salvation. Her heavenly canticles, her magnificent ceremonies, have instructed us day by day, enabling us to follow and understand each Feast and Season.

Blessed be this Mother for the care, with she has placed all these great Mysteries before us, thus giving us light and love! Blessed be the sacred Liturgy, which has brought us so much consolation and encouragement! We have now to pass through the Immoveable portion of the Cycle: we will find sublime spiritual episodes worthy of all our attention. Let us then prepare to resume our journey: let us take fresh courage in the thought that the Holy Ghost will direct our steps, and, by the sacred Liturgy, of which He is the inspirer, will continue to throw open to us treasures of precept and example.

29 MAY – SAINT MARY MAGDALENE OF PAZZI (Virgin)

Caterina de' Pazzi was born into a noble family in 1566. At the age of 16 she entered the Carmelite Convent of Our Lady of the Angels in Florence and took the name Maria Magdalena. There she became a model of every virtue. Such was her purity that she ignored everything opposed to it. She received a command from God (which she fulfilled) of fasting on bread and water for five years, except on Sundays on which she might partake of a Lenten diet.

 

She mortified her body by a hair-shirt, discipline, cold, abstinence, watching, want and every kind of suffering. Such was the ardour of divine love that burned within her that, not being able to bear the heat, she was obliged to temper it by applying cold water to her breast. She was frequently in a state of rapture, and the wonderful ecstasies she had were almost daily. In these states she was permitted to penetrate into heavenly mysteries, and was favoured by God with extraordinary graces. Thus strengthened, she had to endure a long combat with the princes of darkness, and aridity and desolation of spirit, abandonment by all creatures, and various temptations: God so willed it that she might become a model of invincible patience and profound humility.

She was remarkable for her charity towards others. She would often sit up all night, doing the work of the Sisters or in waiting on the sick whose sores she sometimes healed by sucking their wounds. She wept bitterly over the perdition of infidels and sinners, and offered to suffer every sort of torment so that they might be saved.

Several years before her death she heroically besought Jesus to take from her the heavenly delights with which He favoured her, and was frequently heard saying, “To suffer, not to die.” Worn out by a long and painful illness, she died on the twenty-fifth of May in 1607 at the age of 41. Many miracles having been wrought by her merits, both before and after death, she was beatified by Pope Urban VIII and was canonised in 1669 by Pope Clement IX.

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

Our Paschal Calendar gives us three illustrious virgins of the beautiful Italy. We have already kept the feast of the valiant Catherine of Siena. In a few days we will be honouring the memory of Angela de Merici, surrounded by her school-children. Today it is the fair lily of Florence, Magdalene de Pazzi, who embalms the whole Church with the fragrance of her name and intercession. She was the loving imitatrix of our Crucified Jesus. Was it not just that she should have some share in the joy of His Resurrection?

Magdalene de Pazzi was one of the brightest ornaments of the Order of Carmel, by her angelic purity, and by the ardour of her love for God. Like Saint Philip Neri, she was one of the grandest manifestations of the Divine Charity that is found in the true Church. Magdalene in her peaceful cloister, and Philip in his active labours for the salvation of souls — both made it their ambition to satisfy that desire expressed by our Jesus when He said: “I am come to cast fire on the earth; and what will I, but that it be kindled” (Luke xii. 49).The life of this Spouse of Christ was one continued miracle. Her ecstasies and raptures were almost of every-day occurrence. The lights given to her regarding the mysteries were extraordinary, and in order to prepare her for those sublime communications, God would have her go through the severest trials of the spiritual life. She triumphed over them all and, her love having found its nourishment in them, she could not be happy without suffering, for nothing else seemed to satisfy the longings of the love that burned within her. At the same time, her heart was filled to overflowing with charity for her neighbour: she would have saved all mankind, and her charity to all, even for their temporal well-being, was something heroic. God blessed Florence on her account, and as to the city itself, she so endeared herself to its people by her admirable virtues that devotion to her, even to this day, which is more than [three] hundred years since her death, is as fervent as ever it was.

One of the most striking proofs of the divine origin and holiness of the Church is to be found in such privileged souls as Magdalene de Pazzi, on whom we see the mysteries of our salvation acting with such direct influence. “God so loved the world, as to give it His Only Begotten Son” (John iii. 16), and this Son of God deigns to love some of His creatures with such special affection, and to lavish on them such extraordinary favours, that all men may have some idea of the love with which His Sacred Heart is inflamed for this world, which He redeemed at the price of His Blood. Happy those Christians that appreciate and relish these instances of Jesus’ special love! Happy they that can give Him thanks for bestowing such gifts on some of our fellow-creatures! They have the true light, whereas they that have an unpleasant feeling at hearing of such things, and are angry at the thought that there can be an intimacy between God and any soul of which they are not worthy — this class of people prove that there is a great deal of darkness mixed up with their faith.

* * * * *

Your life here below, O Magdalene, resembled that of an Angel who was sent by God to assume our weak and fallen nature, and be subject to its laws. Your soul was ceaselessly aspiring to a life which was all heavenly, and your Jesus was ever giving you that thirst of love which can only be quenched at the waters of life everlasting. A heavenly light revealed to you such admirable mysteries, such treasures of truth and beauty, that your heart —unequal to the sweetness thus given to it by the Holy Ghost, sought relief in sacrifice and suffering. It seemed to you, as though there was but one way of making God a return for His favours — the annihilation of self. Seraphic lover of our God, how are we to imitate you? What is our love, when we compare it to yours? And yet, we can imitate you. The year of the Church’s Liturgy was your very life. Each of its Seasons did its work in you, and brought you new light and love. The divine Babe of Bethlehem, the bleeding Victim of the Cross, the glorious Conqueror of Death, the Holy Ghost radiant with His seven gifts — each of these great realities enraptured you and your soul, renewed by the annual succession of the mysteries, was transformed into Him who, that He might win our hearts, gives these sublime celebrations to His Church. Your love of souls was great during your sojourn here. It is more ardent now that you are in possession of the Sovereign Good. Obtain for us, Magdalene, light to see the riches which enraptured you, and love to love the treasures which enamoured you. O riches! Treasures! Is it possible that they are ours too?

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Rome, on the Via Aurelia, the birthday of St. Restitutus, martyr.

At Iconium, a town of Isauria, in the time of the emperor Aurelian, the martyrdom of the Saints Conon and his son, a child twelve years of age, who were laid on a grate over burning coals sprinkled with oil, were racked and exposed to the fire and finally, having their hands crushed with a mallet, they breathed their last.

The same day, in the time of the emperor Honorius, the birthday of the holy martyrs Sisinius, Martyrius and Alexander who were persecuted by the Gentiles of Anaunia and obtained the crown of martyrdom, as is related by Paulinus in the Life of St. Ambrose.

At Caesarea Philippi, the holy martyrs Theodosia, mother of the martyr St. Procopius, and twelve other noble matrons, who ended their life by decapitation in the persecution of Diocletian.

In Umbria, the passion of fifteen hundred and twenty-five holy martyrs.

At Treves, blessed Maximus, bishop and confessor, who received with honour the patriarch St. Athanasius banished by the Arian persecutors.

At Verona, St. Maximus, bishop.

At Arcanum, in Campania, St. Eleutherius, confessor.

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

Thanks be to God.