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

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

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

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

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

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

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

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

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

In Syria, St. Julian, martyr.

At Tarragona, St. Maginus, martyr.

At Constantinople, St. Mennas, bishop.

At Utrecht, St. Gregory, bishop.

At Naples, St. Patricia, virgin.

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

Thanks be to God.

24 AUGUST – SAINT BARTHOLOMEW (Apostle)

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

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

At Rouen, St. Owen, bishop and confessor.

At Nevers, St. Patrick, abbot.

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

Thanks be to God.

23 AUGUST – SAINT PHILIP BENIZI (Confessor)

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

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

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

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

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

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

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

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

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

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

The vigil of St. Bartholomew, Apostle.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

At Alexandria, St. Theonas, bishop and confessor.

At Utic, in Africa, blessed Victor, bishop.

At Autun, St. Flavian, bishop.

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

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

Thanks be to God.

23 AUGUST – THIRTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

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

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

Epistle – Galatian iii. 16‒22

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

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gospel – Luke xvii. 11‒19

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

Praise be to you, O Christ.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

22 AUGUST – OCTAVE OF THE ASSUMPTION: THE IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY

The Immaculate Heart of Mary is a devotional title that refers to the interior life of the Blessed Virgin Mary―her joys and sorrows, her virtues and perfections, her virginal love for God, her maternal love for Jesus and her compassionate love for all mankind. Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary is a natural result of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In 1944 the Venerable Pope Pius XII ordered the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary to be celebrated throughout the universal Church on 22 August with the privilege of double of the Second Class. The Pope told the Catholic world that “with this devotion the Church renders the honour due to the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary, since under the symbol of this Heart she venerates with reverence the eminent and singular holiness of the Mother of God, and especially her most ardent love for God and Jesus her Son, and moreover her maternal compassion for all those redeemed by the divine Blood.” 

Mary Immaculate, Star of the Morning
Chosen before the creation began,
Destined to bring, through the light of your dawning
Conquest of Satan and rescue to men.

Bend from your throne at the voice of our crying.
Look to this earth where your footsteps have trod.
Stretch out your arms to us, living and dying,
Mary Immaculate, Mother of God.

We, sinners, honor your sinless perfection;
Fallen and weak, for God’s mercy we plead.
Grant us the shield of your mighty protection.
Measure your aid by depth of our need.

Bend from your throne at the voice of our crying.
Look to this earth where your footsteps have trod.
Stretch out your arms to us, living and dying,
Mary Immaculate, Mother of God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

He alone who could understand Mary’s holiness could appreciate her glory. But Wisdom, who presided over the formation of the abyss, has not revealed to us the depth of that ocean beside which all the virtues of the just and all the graces lavished on them are but streamlets. Nevertheless, the immensity of grace and merit by which the Blessed Virgin’s supernatural perfection stands quite apart from all others gives us a right to conclude that she has an equal super-eminence in glory which is always proportioned to the sanctity of the elect. Whereas all the other predestined of our race are placed among the various ranks of the celestial hierarchy, the holy Mother of God is exalted above all the choirs, forming by herself a distinct order, a new Heaven, where the harmonies of Angels and Saints are far surpassed. In Mary God is more glorified, better known, more loved than in all the rest of the universe. On this ground alone, according to the order of creative Providence which subordinates the less to the more perfect, Mary is entitled to be Queen of Earth and Heaven. In this sense, it is for her, next to the Man-God, that the world exists.

The great theologian, Cardinal de Lugo, explaining the words of the Saints on this subject, dares to say: “Just as, creating all things in his complacency for His Christ, God made Him the end of creatures, so with due proportion, we may say He drew the rest of the world out of nothing through the love of the Virgin Mother so that she too might thus be justly called the end of all things.” As Mother of God, and at the same time His first born, she had a right and title over His goods. As Bride she ought to share His crown. “The glorious Virgin,” says Saint Bernardine of Sienna, “has as many subjects as the Blessed Trinity has. Every creature, whatever be its rank in creation, spiritual as the Angels, rational as man, material as the heavenly bodies or the elements, Heaven and Earth, the reprobate and the blessed, all that springs from the power of God, is subject to the Virgin. For He who is the Son of God and of the Blessed Virgin, wishing, so to say, to make His Mother’s became, God as He is, the servant of Mary. If then it be true to say that every one, even the Virgin, obeys God, we may also convert the proposition, and affirm that every one, even God, obeys the Virgin.”

The empire of Eternal Wisdom comprises, so the Holy Spirit tells us, the heavens, the earth, and the abyss: the same then is the appanage of Mary on this her crowning day. Like the divine Wisdom to whom she gave Flesh, she may glory in God. He whose magnificence she once chanted, today exalts her humility. The Blessed one by excellence has become the honour of her people, the admiration of the Saints, the glory of the armies of the Most High. Together with the Spouse, let her, in her beauty, march to victory. Let her triumph over the hearts of the mighty and the lowly. The giving of the world’s sceptre into her hands is no mere honour void of reality: from this day forward she commands and fights, protects the Church, defends its head, upholds the ranks of the sacred militia, raises up Saints, directs Apostles, enlightens doctors, exterminates heresy, crushes Hell.

Let us hail our Queen, let us sing her mighty deeds. Let us be docile to her. Above all, let us love her and trust in her love. Let us not fear that, amid the great interests of the spreading of God’s Kingdom, she will forget our littleness or our miseries. She knows all that takes place in the obscurest corners, in the furthest limits of her immense domain. From her title of universal cause under the Lord, is rightly deduced the universality of her providence, and the masters of doctrine show us Mary in glory sharing in the science called of vision by which all that is, has been, or is to be, is present before God. On the other hand, we must believe that her charity could not possibly be defective: as her love of God surpasses the love of all the elect, so the tenderness of all mothers united, centred upon an only child, is nothing to the love with which with Mary surrounds the least, the most forgotten, the most neglected of all the children of God, who are her children too. She forestalls them in her solicitude, listens at all times to their humble prayers, pursues them in their guilty flights, sustains their weakness, compassionates their ills, whether of body or of soul, sheds on all men the heavenly favours of which she is the treasury.

Let us then say to her in the words of one of her great servants: “O most holy Mother of God, who has beautified Heaven and Earth, in leaving this world you have not abandoned man. Here below you lived in Heaven. From heaven you converse with us. Thrice happy those who contemplated you and lived with the Mother of life! But in the same way as you dwelt in the flesh with them of the first age, you now dwell with us spiritually. We hear your voice, and all our voices reach your ear, and your continual protection over us makes your presence evident. You visit us. Your eye is upon us all, and although our eyes cannot see you, O most holy One, yet you are in the midst of us, showing yourself in various ways to whoever is worthy. Your immaculate body come forth from the tomb hinders not the immaterial power, the most pure activity of that spirit of yours which, being inseparable from the Holy Ghost, breathes also where it wills. O Mother of God, receive the grateful homage of our joy, and speak for your children to Him who has glorified you: whatever you ask of Him, He will accomplish it by His divine power. May He be blessed forever!”

Let us honour the group of Martyrs which forms the rear-guard of our triumphant Queen. Timothy, who came from Antioch to Rome, Hippolytus, Bishop of Porto, and Symphorian, the glory of Autun, suffered for God at different periods and at different places, but they gathered their palms on the same day of the year, and the same Heaven is now their abode. “My son, my son,” said his valiant mother to Symphorian, “remember life eternal. Look up and see Him who reigns in Heaven. They are not taking your life away, but changing it into a better.”

Let us admire these heroes of our faith, and let us learn to walk like them, though by less painful paths, in the footsteps of our Lord, and so to rejoice Mary.

On this day according to the ROMAN MARTYOLOGY:

At Rome, on the Via Ostiensis, the birthday of the holy martyr Timothy. After he had been arrested by Tarquinius, prefect of the city, and kept for a long time in prison, as he refused to sacrifice to the idols, he was scourged three times, subjected to the most severe torments and finally beheaded.

At Porto, St. Hippolytus, bishop, most renowned for learning. Having gloriously confessed the faith in the time of the emperor Alexander, he was bound hand and foot, precipitated into a deep ditch filled with water, and thus received the palm of martyrdom. His body was buried by Christians at that place.

At Autun, St. Symphorian, a martyr, in the time of the emperor Aurelian. Refusing to offer sacrifice to the idols, he was first scourged, then confined in prison, and finally ended his martyrdom by being beheaded.

At Rome, St. Antoninus, martyr, who, openly declaring himself a Christian, was condemned to capital punishment by the judge Vitellius, and buried on the Via Aurelia.

Also at Porto, the holy martyrs Martial, Saturninus, Epictetus, Maprilis and Felix, with their companions.

At Nicomedia, the Saints Agathonicus, Zoticus and their fellow-martyrs, under the emperor Maximian and the governor Eutholomius.

At Tarsus, the Saints Athanasius, bishop and martyr, Anthusa, a noble woman whom he had baptised, and two of her slaves, who suffered under Valerian.

At Rheims, the holy martyr Maurus and his companions.

In Spain, the saintly martyrs Fabrician and Philibert.

At Pavia, St. Gunifort, martyr.

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

Thanks be to God.

21 AUGUST – SAINT JANE FRANCES DE CHANTAL (Widow)

Jane Frances Frémiot was born at Dijon in Burgundy in 1572. From her childhood she gave clear signs of her future great sanctity. It was said that when only five years of age, she put to silence a Calvinist nobleman by substantial arguments, far beyond her age, and when he offered her a little present she immediately threw it into the fire, saying: “This is how heretics will burn in Hell, because they do not believe Christ when He speaks.” When she lost her mother, she put herself under the care of the Virgin Mother of God, and dismissed a maid servant who was enticing her to love of the world. There was nothing childish in her manners. She shrank from worldly pleasures, and thirsting for martyrdom, she devoted herself entirely to religion and piety. She was given in marriage by her father to the Baron de Chantal, and in this new state of life she strove to cultivate every virtue, and busied herself in instructing in faith and morals her four children, her servants and all under her authority. Her liberality in relieving the necessities of the poor was very great, and more than once God miraculously multiplied her stores of provisions. On this account she promised never to refuse anyone who begged an alms in Christ’s name.

Jane was widowed at the age of 28 when the Baron died in an accident while hunting. She determined to embrace a more perfect life and bound herself by a vow of chastity. She not only bore her husband’s death with resignation, but overcame herself so far as to stand godmother to the child of the man who had killed him in order to give a public proof that she pardoned him. She contented herself with a few servants and with plain food and dress, devoting her costly garments to pious usages. Whatever time remained from her domestic cares she employed in prayer, pious reading and work. She could never be induced to accept offers of second marriage, even though honourable and advantageous. In order not to be shaken in her resolution of observing chastity, she renewed her vow and imprinted the most holy name of Jesus Christ on her breast with a red-hot iron. Her love grew more ardent day by day. She had the poor, the abandoned, the sick, and those who were afflicted with the most terrible diseases brought to her, and not only sheltered, comforted and nursed them, but washed and mended their filthy garments, and did not shrink from putting her lips to their running sores.

Having learnt the will of God from her spiritual director and friend Saint Francis de Sales, she founded the Institute of the Visitation of our Lady for the spiritual advancement of young girls and widows who did not have the desire or strength to subject themselves to the severe ascetical practices then in force in all religious orders. For this purpose she quitted, with unfaltering courage, her father, her father-in-law, and even her son, over whose body she had to step in order to leave her home, so violently did he oppose her vocation. She observed her Rule with the utmost fidelity, and so great was her love of poverty that she rejoiced to be in want of even the necessaries of life. She was a perfect model of Christian humility, obedience and all other virtues. Wishing for still higher ascensions in her heart, she bound herself by a most difficult vow always to do what she thought most perfect. The Order of the Visitation spread far and wide, chiefly through her endeavours, and she encouraged her sisters to piety, and charity by words and example, and also by writings full of divine wisdom.

Jane died at Moulins, having duly received the Sacraments of the Church. She died on the 13th of December 1641. Saint Vincent de Paul, who was at a great distance, saw her soul being carried to Heaven and Saint Francis de Sales coming to meet her. Her body was afterwards translated to the crypt in the Church of the Visitation at Annecy. Miracles having made her illustrious both before and after her death, she was beatified by Pope Benedict XIV in 1751 and was canonised by Pope Clement XIII in 1767.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Although Mary’s glory is within her, beauty appears also in the garment with which she is clad: a mysterious robe woven of the virtues of the Saints who owe to her both their justice and their reward. As every grace comes to us through our Mother, so all the glory of Heaven converges towards that of the Queen.

Now among the blessed souls there are some more immediately connected with the holy Virgin. Prevented by the peculiarly tender love of the Mother of grace, they left all things when on Earth to run after the odour of the perfumes of the Spouse she gave to the world. In Heaven they keep the greater intimacy with Mary which was theirs even in the time of exile. Hence it is, that at this time of her exaltation beside the Son of God, the Psalmist sings also of the Virgins entering joyously with her into the temple of the King. The crowning of our Lady is truly the special feast of these daughters of Tyre, who have themselves become princesses and queens in order to form her noble escort and her royal court.

If the Saint proposed to our veneration today is not adorned with the diadem of virginity, she is nevertheless one of those who have deserved in their humility to hear the heavenly message: “Hearken, O daughter, and see, and incline your ear. And forget your people and your father’s house” (Psalms xliv. 11). In reply, such was her eagerness in the ways of love, that numberless virgins followed in her footsteps in order to be more sure of reaching the Spouse. She also, then, has a glorious place in the vesture of gold, with its play of colours, with which the Queen of Saints is clad in her triumph. For what is the variety noticed by the Psalm, in the embroideries and fringes of that robe of glory, if not the diversity of tints in the gold of divine charity among the elect? In order to bring forward the happy effect produced by this diversity in the light of the Saints, Eternal Wisdom has multiplied the forms under which the life of the counsels may be presented to the world. Such is the teaching given in the holy Liturgy by bringing together the feasts of yesterday and today on its sacred cycle. Between Cistercian austerity and the more interior renouncement of the Visitation of holy Mary, there seems to be a great distance: nevertheless the Church unites the memory of Saint Jane de Chantal and of the Abbot of Clairvaux in homage to the Blessed Virgin during the happy Octave which consummates her glory. It is because all rules of perfection are alike in being merely variations of the one Rule, that of love, of which Mary’s life was a perfect pattern. “Let us not divide the robe of the Bride,” says Saint Bernard.

“Unity, as well in heaven as on earth, consists in charity. Let him who glories in the Rule, not break the rule by acting contrary to the Gospel. If the kingdom of God is within us, it is because it is not meat and drink. But justice, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost (Romans xiv. 17). To criticise others on their exterior observance, and to neglect the Rule in what regards the soul, is to take out a gnat from the cup and to swallow a camel. You break your body with endless labour, you mortify with austerities your members which are on the earth, and you do well. But while you allow yourself to judge him who does not so much penance, he perhaps is following the advice of the Apostle: ‘More eager for the better gifts, keeping less of that bodily exercise which is profitable to little he gives himself up more to that godliness which is profitable to all things’ (1 Timothy iv. 8). Which then of you two keeps the Rule better? Doubtless he that becomes better thereby. Now which is the better? The humbler? or the more fatigued? ‘Learn of me,’ said Jesus, ‘because I am meek and humble of heart’” (Matthew xi. 29).

Saint Francis de Sales, in his turn, speaking of the diversity of religious Orders, says very well: “All Religious Orders have one spirit common to them all, and each has a spirit peculiar to itself. The common spirit is the design they all have of aspiring after the perfection of charity. But the peculiar spirit of each is the means of arriving at that perfection of charity, that is to say, at the union of our souls with God, and with our neighbour through the love of God.” Coming next to the special spirit of the institute he had founded together with our Saint, the Bishop of Geneva declares that it is “a spirit of profound humility towards God and of great sweetness towards our neighbour, inasmuch as there is less rigour towards the body, so much the more sweetness must there be in the heart.” And because “this Congregation has been so established that no great severity may prevent the weak and infirm from entering it and giving themselves up to the perfection of divine love,” he adds playfully: “If there be any sister so generous and courageous as to wish to attain perfection in a quarter of an hour by doing more than the Community does, I would advise her to humble herself and be content to become perfect in three days, following the same course as the rest. For a great simplicity must always be kept in all things: to walk simply, that is the true way for the daughters of the Visitation, a way exceedingly pleasing to God and very safe.”

With sweetness and humility for motto, the pious Bishop did well to give his daughters for escutcheon the divine Heart from which these gentle virtues derive their source. We know how magnificently Heaven justified the choice. Before a century had elapsed, a nun of the Visitation, the Blessed Margaret Mary, could say: “Our adorable Saviour showed me the devotion to His divine Heart as a beautiful tree which He had destined from all eternity to take root in the midst of our Institute. He wills that the daughters of the Visitation should distribute the fruits of this sacred tree abundantly to all those that wish to eat of it, and without fear of its failing them.”

“Love! Love! Love! my daughters, I know nothing else.” Thus did Jane de Chantal, the glorious co-operatrix of Saint Francis in establishing the Visitation of holy Mary, often cry out in her latter years. “Mother,” said one of the sisters, “I will write to our houses that your charity is growing old, and that, like your godfather Saint John, you can speak of nothing but love.” To which the Saint replied: “My daughter, do not make such a comparison, for we must not profane the Saints by comparing them to poor sinners. But you will do me a pleasure if you tell those sisters that if I went by my own feelings, if I followed my inclination, and if I were not afraid of wearying the sisters, I should never speak of anything but charity. And I assure you, I scarcely ever open my mouth to speak of holy things without having a mind to say: ‘You must love the Lord with your whole heart, and your neighbour as yourself.’”

Such words are worthy of her who obtained for the Church the admirable Treatise on the Love of God, composed, says the Bishop of Genoa, for her sake, at her request and solicitation, for herself and her companions. At first, however, the impetuosity of her soul, overflowing with devotedness and energy, seemed to unfit her to be mistress in a school where heroism can only express itself by the simple sweetness of a life altogether hidden in God. It was to discipline this energy of the valiant woman without extinguishing its ardour, that Saint Francis perseveringly applied himself during the eighteen years he directed her. “Do all things,” he repeats in a thousand ways, “without haste, gently, as do the Angels. Follow the guidance of divine movements and be supple to grace. God wills us to be like little children.” And this reminds us of an exquisite page from the amiable Saint, which we cannot resist quoting: “If one had asked the sweet Jesus when He was carried in His Mother’s arms, to where He was going, might He not with good reason have answered: ‘I go not, 'tis my Mother that goes for me:’ and if one had said to Him: ‘But at least do you not go with your Mother?’ Might He not reasonably have replied: ‘No, I do not go, or if I go to where my Mother carries me, I do not myself walk with her nor by my own steps, but by my Mother’s, by her, and in her.’ But if one had persisted with Him, saying: ‘But at least, O most dear divine child, you really will to let yourself be carried by your sweet Mother?’ No, verily, might He have said, ‘I will nothing of all this, but as my entirely good Mother walks for me, so she wills for me. I leave her the care as well to go as to will to go for me where she likes best. And as I go not but by her steps, so I will not but by her will. Aand from the instant I find myself in her arms, I give no attention either to willing or not willing, turning all other cares over to my Mother, save only the care to be on her bosom, to suck her sacred breast, and to keep myself close clasped to her most beloved neck, that I may most lovingly kiss her with the kisses of my mouth. And be it known to you that while I am amidst the delights of these holy caresses which surpass all sweetness, I consider that my Mother is a tree of life, and myself on her as its fruit, that I am her own heart in her breast, or her soul in the midst of her heart, so that as her going serves both her and me without my troubling myself to take a single step, so her will serves us both without my producing any act of my will about going or coming. Nor do I ever take notice whether she goes fast or slow, hither or thither, nor do I inquire whither she means to go, contenting myself with this, that go to where she please I go still locked in her arms, close laid to her beloved breasts, where I feed as among lilies...’ Thus should we be, Theotimus, pliable and tractable to God’s good pleasure.”

The office of Martha seemed at first to be destined for you, O great Saint! Your father, Francis de Sales, forestalling Saint Vincent de Paul, thought of making your companions the first daughters of Charity. Thus was given to your work the blessed name of Visitation, which was to place under Mary’s protection your visits to the sick and neglected poor. But the progressive deterioration of strength in modern times had laid open a more pressing want in the institutions of holy Church. Many souls called to share Mary’s part were prevented from doing so by their inability to endure the austere life of the great contemplative Orders. The Spouse, who deigns to adapt His goodness to all times, made choice of you, O Jane, to second the love of His Sacred Heart and come to the rescue of the physical and moral miseries of an old, worn-out and decrepit world.

Renew us, then, in the love of Him whose charity consumed you first. In its ardour, you traversed the most various paths of life and never did you fail of that admirable strength of soul which the Church presents before God today in order to obtain through you the assistance necessary to our weakness. May the insidious and poisonous spirit of Jansenism never return to freeze our hearts. But at the same time, as we learn from you, love is only then real, when, with or without austerities, it lives by faith, generosity, and self-renunciation, in humility, simplicity and gentleness. It is the spirit of your holy institute, the spirit which became, through your angelic Father, so amiable and so strong: may it ever reign amid your daughters, keeping up among their houses the sweet union which has never ceased to rejoice Heaven. May the world be refreshed by the perfumes which ever exhale from the silent retreats of the Visitation of holy Mary!

* * * * *

O glorious saint, Blessed Jane Frances, who, by your fervent prayer, attention to the Divine Presence and purity of intention in your actions, attained on Earth an intimate union with God, be now our advocate, our mother, our guide in the path of virtue and perfection. Plead our cause near Jesus, Mary and Joseph to whom you were so tenderly devoted and whose holy virtues you so closely imitated. Obtain for us, O amiable and compassionate saint, the virtues you see most necessary for us: an ardent love of Jesus in the Most Holy Sacrament, a tender and filial confidence in His blessed Mother and, like you, a constant remembrance of His sacred Passion and death.

V. Saint Jane Frances, pray for us.
R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

* * * * *

 

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

In the Campo Verano at Rome, St. Cyriaca, widow and martyr. In the persecution of Valerian, after devoting herself and all her goods in the service of the saints, she gave up her life by suffering martyrdom for Christ.

At Salona, St. Anastasius, a law officer, who was converted to the faith by seeing the fortitude with which blessed Agapitus bore his torments, and being put to death by order of the emperor Aurelian, for confessing the name of Christ, went to Our Lord.

In Sardinia, the birthday of the holy martyrs Luxorius, Cisellus and Camerinus who were put to the sword in the persecution of Diocletian under the governor Delphius.

In Gevaudan, St. Privatus, bishop and martyr, who suffered in the persecution of Valerian and Gallienus.

The same day, the holy martyrs Bonosus and Maximian.

At Fundi in Campania, St. Paternus, a martyr, who came from Alexandria to Rome to visit the tomb of the Apostles. Then he retired to the neighbourhood of Fundi, where, being seized by the tribune while he was burying the bodies of the martyrs, he died in captivity.

At Edessa in Syria, during the persecution of Maximian, the holy martyrs Bassa, and her sons Theogonius, Agapius and Fidelis, who their pious mother exhorted to martyrdom and sent before her bearing their crowns. Being herself beheaded, she joyfully followed them and shared their victory.

At Verona, St. Euprepius, bishop and confessor.

Also St. Quadratus, bishop.

At Siena in Tuscany, blessed Bernard Ptolemy, abbot and founder of the Congregation of Olivetans.

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

Thanks be to God.