Sylvester, a Roman by birth and son of Rufinus,
was brought up from childhood by the priest Cyrinus. He imitated his
master by his learning and a good life, and when in his thirtieth
year was ordained a priest of the holy Roman Church by Pope
Marcellinus, he surpassed the rest of the clergy in the admirable
manner in which he performed his sacred duties, and was chosen as the
successor of Pope Melchiades under the reign of the Emperor
Constantine. This Emperor, having been advised by his physicians to
seek the cure of his leprosy by bathing in infants’
blood, was visited in his sleep by the holy Apostles Peter and Paul.
They bade him refuse the sinful remedy of the bath if he desired to
be cleansed from his leprosy, and go Sylvester who was then hiding on
mount Soracte, that having been regenerated in the saving waters of
baptism, he should give orders that Churches, after the manner of the
Christians, should be built in every part of the Roman empire and
that he should destroy the idols of the false gods and worship the
true God.
Constantine, therefore, obeying the heavenly
admonition, caused the most diligent search to be made for Sylvester
and, when found, to be brought to him. This being done, and the
Pontiff having shown Constantine the portraits of the two Apostles he
had seen in his sleep, the Emperor was baptised and healed, and
became exceedingly zealous for the defence and propagation of the
Christian religion. By the persuasion of the holy Pontiff,
Constantine also built several Basilicas which he enriched with
sacred images and most princely donations and gifts. He moreover
granted permission to the Christians publicly to erect churches which
previously they were forbidden to do. Two Councils were held during
the reign of this Pontiff: that of Nicaea over which presided his
Legates. Constantine was present, and 318 Bishops were assembled
there. The holy and Catholic faith was explained and Arius and his
followers were condemned. The Council was confirmed by Sylvester at
the request of all the Fathers assembled. The second Council was that
of Rome at which 284 Bishops were present and there Arius was
condemned.
Sylvester passed several decrees most useful to
the Church of God: the Chrism should be blessed by a Bishop only, the
priest should anoint the crown of the head of the person he baptised,
Deacons should wear the dalmatic in the church and a linen ornament
on the left arm, and the Sacrifice of the Altar should not be
celebrated except on a linen veil. He laid down the length of time
during which they who received Holy Orders should exercise the
functions belonging to each Order before passing to a higher grade.
He made it illegal for a layman to be the public accuser of a cleric,
and forbade clerics to plead before a civil tribunal. The names of
Saturday and Sunday were to be still used, but all the other days of
the week were to be called Ferias, as the Church had already begun to
call them, thereby signifying that the clergy should put aside all
other cares and spend every day in the undisturbed service of God. To
this heavenly prudence with which he governed the Church, he ever
joined the most admirable holiness of life, and charity towards the
poor. For instance, he arranged that those among the clergy who had
no means should live with wealthy members of the clergy, and that
everything needed for their maintenance should be supplied to virgins
consecrated to God.
Sylvester governed the Church 21 years, 10 months
and one day. He was buried in the cemetery of Priscilla on the Via
Salaria. He seven times gave ordinations in December during which he
ordained 42 Priests, 25 Deacons and 65 Bishops.
Dom
Prosper Guéranger:
So far the only ones we have seen standing round the crib of our Jesus have been Martyrs: Stephen, overwhelmed with the shower of stones; John, the Martyr in heart who survived his fiery torture; the Holy Innocents, massacred by the sword; Thomas, murdered in his Cathedral — these are the champions of Christ who kneel in the palace of Bethlehem. Yet, all Christians are not called to be Martyrs. Besides this countless battalion of the King’s favourite soldiers, there are other troops of sainted heroes which form the heavenly army, and among these there are the Confessors who conquered the world, without shedding their blood in the combat.
Though the place of honour in the service of the King belongs to the Martyrs, yet did the Confessors fight manfully for the glory of His name and the spreading of His Kingdom. The palm is not in their hands but they are crowned with the crown of justice, and Jesus, who gave it to them, has made it be part of His own glory that they should be near His throne. The Church would therefore grace this glorious Christmas Octave with the name of one of her children who should represent, at Bethlehem, the whole class of her unmartyred Saints. She chose a Confessor — Saint Sylvester — a Confessor who governed the Church of Rome and therefore the universal Church: a Pontiff, whose reign was long and peaceful. A servant of Jesus Christ adorned with every virtue, who was sent to edify and guide the world immediately after those fearful combats that had lasted for three hundred years and in which millions of Christians had gained victory by martyrdom under the leadership of Thirty Popes — predecessors of Saint Sylvester — and they too, all Martyrs. So that Sylvester is messenger of the Peace which Christ came to give to the world, and of which the Angels sang on Christmas Night. He is the friend of Constantine. He confirms the Council of Nicaea. He organises the discipline of the Church for the new era on which she is now entering — the era of Peace.
His predecessors, in the See of Peter, imaged Jesus in His sufferings. Sylvester represented Jesus in His triumph. His appearance during this Octave reminds us that the Divine Child who lies wrapped in swaddling clothes and is the object of Herod’s persecution, is, notwithstanding all these humiliations, the Prince of Peace, the Father of the world to come (Isaias ix. 6).
*****
Supreme Pastor of the Church of Christ, you lend to the beauty of the holy Octave of Christmas the lustre of your glorious merits. There you worthily represent the countless choir of Confessors, for you steered the barque of Peter after the three hundred years’ tempest, leading her with watchful love in her first hours of calm. The pontifical Diadem reflecting Heaven in its gems sits on your venerable brow. The Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven are in your hands. You opened it for the admission of the Gentiles who embraced the faith of Christ. You shut it against the Arians in that august Council of Nicaea where you presided by your Legates, and to which you gave authority, by confirming it with your apostolic approbation. The furious storms will again soon rage against the Church, and the angry billows of heresy will beat against her. You will then be in the bosom of God but together with Saint Peter you will keep guard over the purity of the Faith of Rome. You will support Julius. You will rescue Liberius and Athanasius, aided by your prayers, will find a shelter within the walls of Rome. Under your peaceful reign Christian Rome receives the reward of her long-endured persecution. She is acknowledged as Queen of Christendom, and her empire becomes the sole empire that is universal. The son of your pastoral zeal, Constantine, leaves the city of Romulus which has now become the City of Peter. The Imperial majesty would be eclipsed by that greater one of the Vicar of Christ. He makes Byzantium his capital, leaving Rome to be that of the Pontiff-King. The temples of the false gods become ruins,and make room for the Christian Basilicas in which are enshrined the Relics of the Apostles and Martyrs. In a word, the Church has triumphed over the Prince of this world, and the victory is typified by the destruction of that Dragon which infected the air by its poisonous breath.
Honoured with all these wonderful prerogatives, saintly Vicar of Christ, forget not the Christian people which was once your flock. It asks you, on this your Feast, to make it known and love the mystery of the birth of Jesus. By the sublime Symbol which embodies the Faith of Nicaea and which you confirmed and promulgated throughout the whole Church, you have taught us to acknowledge this sweet Infant as God of God, Light of Light, begotten not made, consubstantial to the Father. You bid us to come and adore this little child as He by whom all things were made. Holy Confessor of Christ,I vouchsafe to present us to Him, as the Martyrs have done, whose Feasts have filled up the days since His Nativity. Pray to Him for us that our desires for true virtue may be fulfilled, that we may persevere in his Holy love, that we may conquer the world and our passions, and at length, that we may obtain the crown of justice which is to be the reward of our Confessing Him before men, and is the only object of our ambition.
Pontiff of Peace, from the abode of rest where you now dwell, look down on the Church of God, surrounded as she is by implacable enemies, and beseech Jesus, the Prince of Peace, to hasten her triumph. Cast your eye on that Rome, which is so dear to you and which is so faithful in her love of you. Protect and direct her Pontiff. May she triumph over the wiles of political intrigue, the violence of tyranny, the craft of heretics, the perfidy of schismatics, the apathy of worldlings, and the cowardice of her own children. May she be honoured, loved and obeyed. May the sublime dignity of the Priesthood be recognised. May the spiritual power enjoy freedom of action. May the civil authority work hand and hand with the Church. May the Kingdom of God now come and be received throughout the whole world, and may there be but one Fold and one Shepherd.
Still watch, O holy Sylvester, over the sacred treasure of the Faith, which you defended when on Earth, against every danger. May its light put out the vapours of man’s proud dreams, those false and daring doctrines which mislead countless souls. May every mortal bow down his understanding to the obedience of faith in the divine Mysteries, without which all human wisdom is but folly. May Jesus, the Son of God and Son of Mary, be King, by His Church, over the minds and hearts of all men. Pray for Byzantium that was once called the New Rome, but which so soon became the capital of heresies and the scene of everything that could degrade a Christian country. Pray that the days of her deep humiliation may be shortened; that she may again see herself united with Rome; that she may honour Christ and his Vicar; that she may obey, and by her obedience be saved. May the people, misled and debased by her influence and rule, recover their dignity as men, which can only subsist when men have faith, or be regained by a return to the faith.
And lastly, O Conqueror of Satan, keep this hellish monster in the prison to which you drove him. Confound his pride and his schemes. Let him no longer seduce the people of God’s Earth, but may all the children of the Church, according to the word of Peter, your predecessor, resist him by the strength of their faith.
*****
Let us, on this the Seventh Day within the Christmas Octave, consider the new-born babe wrapped in the swaddling clothes of infancy. They are the indications of weakness. The child that is swathed in them is helpless and dependent on others. Another’s hand must loosen His bands and until then He is not free to move. It was in this infantile helplessness and in the bondage of human weakness that He who gives life and motion to every creature first appeared on our Earth!
Let us contemplate our Blessed Lady wrapping the limbs of her child, her God, in these swathing-bands: but who can picture to himself the respectful love with which she does it! She adores His humiliations — humiliations which He has taken upon Himself in order that He may sanctify every period of man’s life, even that feeblest of all, infancy. So deep was the wound of our pride that it needed a remedy of such exceeding efficacy as this! Can we refuse to become little chlldren now that He, who gives us the precept, sets us so touching an example! Sweet Jesus, we adore you wrapped in your swaddling clothes, and our ambition is to imitate your divine humility.
“Let not,” says the holy Abbot Guerric, “let not the eye of your faith be offended or shocked, Brethren, at these outward humble coverings. As the Mother of Jesus wrapped Him in swaddling clothes, so does Grace and Wisdom, which is your spiritual mother, veil over with certain material things, the truth of our Incarnate God, and hide, under the representation of symbolical figures, the majesty of this same Jesus. When I, Brethren, deliver to you by my words the Truth (which is Jesus) I am swathing Jesus in bands of exceeding great poverty. Happy the soul that loves and adores not its Jesus the less because he receives Him thus poorly clad! Let us therefore most devoutly think upon our Lord clothed in the swathing-bands with which His Mother covered His infant limbs so that in the world of eternal happiness, we may see the glory and beauty with which His Father has clad Him, and this glory is that of the Only Begotten Son of the Father.”
Also on this day according to the ROMAN
MARTYROLOGY:
At Rome on the Via Salaria, in the cemetery of
Priscilla, the holy martyrs Donata, Paulina, Rustica, Nominanda,
Serotina, Hilaria and their companions.
At Sens, the blessed Sabinian, bishop, and
Potentian, who being sent there by the Roman Pontiff to preach,
illustrated that metropolitan church by their confession and
martyrdom.
In the same place, St. Columba, virgin and martyr,
who after having triumphed over fire, was beheaded in the persecution
of the emperor Aurelian.
At Retiers, St. Hermes, exorcist.
At Catania in Sicily, the martyrdom of the Saints
Stephen, Pontian, Attains, Fabian, Cornelius, Sextus, Flos,
Quinctian, Minervinus and Simplician.
The same day, St. Zoticus, Roman priest, who went
to Constantinople, and took upon himself the care of orphans.
At Ravenna, St. Parbatian, priest and confessor.
The same day, St. Melania the Younger, who
withdrew from Rome with her husband Pinian, and went to Jerusalem,
where both embraced the religious life, she among the women
consecrated to God, and he among the monks, and ended their career in
peace.
And in other places, many other holy martyrs,
confessors and virgins.
Thanks be to God.
