1 OCTOBER – SAINT REMIGIUS (Bishop and Confessor)

Saint Remigius baptising King Clovis of the Franks

Remigius (also called Remedius) was born in about 435 AD at Laon of noble parents, Emilius and Cylinia. They were far advanced in age and renowned among their own people for their virtue when the birth of this child was foretold to them by a blind hermit named Montanus who afterwards recovered his sight by applying to his eyes some of the milk with which the infant Remigius was nourished. His mother Cylinia is included in the Roman Martyrology as a saint with a feast on the 21st of October, and the translation of her relics is noted in some martyrologies on the 5th of April. The brother of Remigius was Saint Principius, the Bishop of Soissons. His nurse in infancy was Balsamia, venerated as a saint in the Church of Rheims.

Remigius devoted his youth to prayer and study in retirement, but the more he shrank from the company of men, the more his fame spread throughout the province. He was ordained in 457 and at the age of 22 became the Bishop of Rheims on the death of Bennadius. Remigius, who had the mature character of an old man, was unanimously elected, or rather forcibly installed as Archbishop. He endeavoured to escape the burden of the episcopate, but was obliged by the command of God to submit. Having been consecrated by the Bishops of the province, he governed his church with the wisdom of an experienced veteran. He was eloquent and learned in the Scriptures, and a pattern to his people, fulfilling in deed what he taught by word. According to Saint Gregory of Tours, Remigius was a man of great knowledge, imbued with love of rhetorical studies, and so illustrious for his sanctity, as to equal Pope Saint Silvester I.

He carefully and laboriously instructed his own flock in the mysteries of faith, and established discipline among his clergy. Then he undertook to spread the kingdom of Christ in Belgium, and having converted the people to the faith, he founded several new bishoprics and appointed them pastors: at Terouanne Saint Antimund or Aumont, at Arras Saint Vedast, and at Laon Saint Genebald. The wonderful works of Remigius, being divulged far and wide, filled with astonishment the minds of Clovis and his still pagan Franks. When Clovis, who had already conquered the Gauls, triumphed over the Alemanni at the battle of Tolbiac by the invocation of the name of Christ, he sent for Remigius and willingly listened to his explanation of the Christian doctrine. Remigius urged the king to embrace the faith, but he replied that he feared the opposition of his people. When this was reported to the Franks, they cried out with one voice: “We renounce mortal gods, O pious king, and are ready to follow the immortal God whom Remigius preaches.” Then the Bishop imposed a fast on them, according to the custom of the Church, and having, in the presence of the Queen Saint Clotilde, completed the king’s religious instruction, he baptised him on Christmas Day, addressing him in these words: “Bow down your head in meekness, O Sicambrian. Adore what you have until burnt, burn what you have adored.” After the baptism, he anointed him with holy chrism with the sign of the cross of Christ. Moro than three thousand of the army were baptised, as was Albofleda, Clovis’s sister, who died soon after. On this occasion Remigius wrote to console the king. His other sister, Lanthilda was reclaimed from the Arian heresy, anointed with sacred chrism, and reconciled to the Church.

Remigius was exceedingly liberal to the poor and merciful towards sinners. “God has not placed us here,” he would say, “to exercise wrath, but to take care of men.” During a council, he once by divine power struck an Arian bishop with dumbness until he begged forgiveness by signs, when he restored him his speech with these words: “In the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, if you hold the right belief concerning Him, speak and confess the faith of the Catholic Church.” The bishop recovering his voice, protested that he believed and would die in that faith. Towards the end of his life Remigius lost his sight, but recovered it shortly before his death. Knowing the day of his departure, he celebrated Mass and fortified his flock with the sacred Body of Christ. Then he bade his clergy and people farewell, giving to each one the kiss of our Lord’s peace. Remigius died on the 13th of January 533 and has ever since been venerated as one of the greatest glories of the French Church. His festival is generally kept on this day which is the anniversary of the translation of his relics.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Scarcely had two centuries elapsed since the triumph of the Cross over Roman idolatry when Satan began to cry victory once more. While Eutychianism was crowned at Byzantium in the person of Anastasius the Silent, Arianism was rife in the West. Throughout the whole ancient territory of the empire, heresy was supreme, and almost everywhere was persecuting the Church, who had now none but the vanquished for her sons. “But fear not. Rather rejoice,” says Baronius at this point in his Annals: “it is Divine Wisdom still delighting to play in the world. The thoughts of men count for little before Him who holds the light in His hands, to hide it when He pleases and, when He wills, to bring it forth again. The darkness that now covers the earth marks the hour when the dawn is about to break in the hearts of the Franks, and the Catholic faith is to shine there in all its glory.”

Little known in our days is such a manner of writing history. Yet this was the view taken by the first historian of the Church, and the greatest. On such a feast as this we could not do better than repeat summarily his account of the Franks. “How,” says he “can we help admiring that Providence which is never wanting to the Church? From the midst of tribes still pagan, on the morrow of the irremediable fall of the Empire, God forms to Himself a new people, raises to Himself a prince: against these must break the rising tide of heretics and Barbarians. Such, in truth, appeared in the course of ages the divine mission of the Frankish kings. What energy has faith to uphold kingdoms, and what fatal power has heresy to uproot every plant that is not set by our heavenly Father! In proof hereof, see how the principalities of the Goths, Vandals, Heruli, Alani, Suevi and Gepidi have utterly disappeared, while the Franks behold their little spot of earth blessedly fertilised and encroaching far upon the surrounding territories.

Henceforth appeared the might of the Franks, when preceded to battle by the Cross. Hitherto obscure and struggling for existence, they were now everywhere victorious. They had only had to acknowledge Christ in order to reach the highest summit of glory, honour and renown. In so speaking I say nothing but what is known to the whole world. If they have been more favoured than other nations, it is because they were super-eminent in faith, and incomparable in piety, so that they were more eager to defend the Church than to protect their own frontiers. Moreover, a privilege unique and truly admirable was theirs: never did the sins of kings bring upon this people, as upon so many others, subjection to a foreign yoke. The promise of the Psalm would seem to have been renewed in favour of this nation: If his children forsake my law.. and keep not my commandments, I will visit their iniquities with a rod... but my mercy I will not take away from him.”

All honour, then, to the saintly Pontiff who merited to be the instrument of such heavenly benefits! According to the expression of the holy Pope Hormisdas, “Remigius converted the nation, and baptised Clovis, in the midst of prodigies similar to those of the apostolic age.” The prayers of Clotilde, the labours of Genevieve, the penances of the monks who peopled the forests of Gaul, had doubtless a great share in a conversion which brought such joy to the Angels. Did space allow, we might relate how it was also prepared by the great Bishops of the fifth century, Germanus of Auxerre, Lupus of Troyes, Anian of Orleans, Hilary of Arlee, Mamertus and Avitus of Vienne, Sidonius Apollinaris and so many others who, in that age of darkness, held up the Church to the light of day, and commanded the respect of the Barbarians. Remigius, contemporary and survivor of most of them, and their rival in eloquence, nobility and holiness, seemed to personify them all on that Christmas night forestalled by so many desires, and prayers, and sufferings.

In the baptistery of Saint Mary’s at Rheims, the Frankish nation was born to God. As heretofore on the banks of Jordan the dove was again seen over the waters honouring this title, not the Baptism of Jesus, but that of the Church’s eldest daughter, it brought a gift from Heaven, the holy vial containing the chrism which was to anoint the French kings in future ages into the most worthy of all the kings of the Earth. Two churches in the city of Rheims claim the honour of these glorious souvenirs: the grand church of our Lady, and the venerable basilica where Remigius lay, with the vial of chrism at his feet, and guarded by the twelve Peers surrounding his splendid mausoleum. This church of Saint Remigius bore the name of caput Francia, head of all France, until three days of October 1793when, from its desecrated pulpit was proclaimed the word that the days of darkness were at an end: when the holy ampulla was broken, and the relics of the Apostle of France were thrown into a common grave.

After an episcopate of seventy-four years, the longest ever recorded in history, Remigius took his flight to Heaven on the 13th January, the anniversary of his episcopal consecration and also of his birth. Yet in the same century, the first of October was chosen for his Feast, this being the day on which his relics were first translated to a more honourable place, in the midst of miracles such as those which had graced his life. The Translation of Saint Remigius is the name still given to this day by the church of Rheims which, by a special privilege, celebrates on the Octave day of the Epiphany the principal festival of its glorious patron.

Saint Leo IX said to his contemporaries, and we echo his words, concerning the land of France: “Be it known to your charity that you must solemnly celebrate the Feast of the blessed Remigius, for if to others he is not an Apostle, he is such with regard to you at least. Pay such honour, then, to your Apostle and Father, that you may merit, according to the divine promise, to live long upon the earth and, by his prayers, may obtain possession of eternal beatitude.” When he thus spoke, the sovereign Pontiff had just consecrated your church, then for the third time rebuilt with the magnificence required by the growing devotion of the people. The nine centuries since elapsed have augmented your claims to the gratitude of a nation, into which you infuse such vigorous life that no other has equalled it in duration. Accept our thanks, you who were as a new Sylvester to a new Constantine.

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Glory be to our Lord who showed forth His wonders in you! Remembering those gestes of God accomplished in all climes by her sons the Franks, the Church recognises the legitimacy of applying to you the beautiful words which announced the Messiah: “Give ear, ye islands, and hearken, ye people,from afar. The Lord has called me from the womb... And He said: Behold I have given you to be the light of the Gentiles, that you may be my salvation even to the farthest part of the earth.” Truly it was a day of salvation, that Christmas day, on which it pleased our Lord to bless your labours and grant the desires of your long episcopate. By the holy faith you taught, you were then the covenant of the people, the new people composed of the conquerors and the conquered in that land of France which, when once itself raised up, soon restored to God the inheritances that had been destroyed.

O true Church, the one only Bride, captive and destitute, behold Remigius rises to say to your sons that are bound: “Come forth, and to them that are in darkness: Show yourselves!” From North and South, from beyond the sea, behold they come in multitudes: “all these are come to you. Therefore, give praise, O ye heavens, and rejoice O earth, because the Lord has comforted His people.” After a whole century of heresy and barbarity, God has once more demonstrated that they will not be confounded that wait for Him. Our confidence in God will again be rewarded if you, O Remigius, deign to present to our Lord the prayer of the Franks who have remained faithful in honouring thy memory. The renegades sold over to Satan may tyrannise for a time over the deluded crowd, but they are not the nation. A day will come when Christ, who is ever King, will say to the Angels of His guard those words of His lieutenant Clovis: “It displeases me that these Goths possess the good land of France. Expel them, for it belongs to us.”

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Rome, blessed Aretas and five hundred and four other martyrs.

At Tomis in Pontus, the holy martyrs Priscus, Crescens, and Evagrius.

At Lisbon in Portugal, the holy martyrs Verissimus, and his sisters, Maxima and Julia, who suffered in the persecution of Diocletian.

At Tournay, St. Piaton, priest and martyr, who, with blessed Quinctinus and his companions, went from Rome to Gaul to preach the faith and afterwards, in the persecution of Maximian, having consummated his martyrdom, passed from earth to heaven.

At Thessalonica, St. Domninus, martyr, under the same Maximian.

At Ghent, St. Bavo, confessor.

At Orvieto, St. Severus, priest and confessor.

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

Thanks be to God.

OCTOBER – THE MONTH OF THE HOLY ROSARY

According to tradition the Rosary was revealed to Saint Dominic (1170‒1221), the founder of the Dominican Order (the Order of Friar Preachers), by the Blessed Virgin Mary as a means of overcoming the heresies and vices of his times. “The Earth will remain barren”, she told Saint Dominic, “until it is watered by the heavenly dew of this devotion”. The Rosary spread quickly through France and Spain, and then through the rest of Europe.

Apart from the Eucharist and other Sacraments of the Church, the Rosary is probably the most powerful means of personal sanctification. It is a key to the most intimate knowledge of Jesus and Mary, and is an effective way to attain to the perfection of Christian charity.

October is dedicated by the Church to the Most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In 1883 Pope Leo XIII decreed that to win the assistance of Heaven for the Church in her trials, the Mother of God should be honoured by means of the Rosary during the entire month of October.

In his encyclical letter Laetitiae Sanctae Commending Devotion to the Rosary His Holiness Pope Leo XIII told the bishops of the Church:

“We are convinced that the Rosary, if devoutly used, is bound to benefit not only the individual but society at large. No one will do Us the injustice to deny that in the discharge of the duties of the Supreme Apostolate We have laboured ― as, God helping, We shall ever continue to labour — to promote the civil prosperity of mankind. Repeatedly have We admonished those who are invested with sovereign power that they should neither make nor execute laws except in conformity with the equity of the Divine mind. On the other hand, we have constantly besought citizens who were conspicuous by genius, industry, family, or fortune, to join together in common counsel and action to safeguard and to promote whatever would tend to the strength and well-being of the community. Only too many causes are at work, in the present condition of things, to loosen the bonds of public order, and to withdraw the people from sound principles of life and conduct”.

He went on as follows:

“There are three influences which appear to Us to have the chief place in effecting this downgrade movement of society. These are ― first, the distaste for a simple and labourious life; secondly, repugnance to suffering of any kind; thirdly, the forgetfulness of the future life.

 THE DISTASTE FOR A SIMPLE AND LABOURIOUS LIFE

We deplore ― and those who judge of all things merely by the light and according to the standard of nature join with Us in deploring ― that society is threatened with a serious danger in the growing contempt of those homely duties and virtues which make up the beauty of humble life. To this cause we may trace in the home, the readiness of children to withdraw themselves from the natural obligation of obedience to the parents, and their impatience of any form of treatment which is not of the indulgent and effeminate kind. In the workman, it evinces itself in a tendency to desert his trade, to shrink from toil, to become discontented with his lot, to fix his gaze on things that are above him, and to look forward with unthinking hopefulness to some future equalization of property. We may observe the same temper permeating the masses in the eagerness to exchange the life of the rural districts for the excitements and pleasures of the town. Thus the equilibrium between the classes of the community is being destroyed, everything becomes unsettled, men’s minds become a prey to jealousy and heart-burnings, rights are openly trampled under foot, and, finally, the people, betrayed in their expectations, attack public order, and place themselves in conflict with those who are charged to maintain it.

For evils such as these let us seek a remedy in the Rosary, which consists in a fixed order of prayer combined with devout meditation on the life of Christ and His Blessed Mother. Here, if the joyful mysteries be but clearly brought home to the minds of the people, an object lesson of the chief virtues is placed before their eyes. Each one will thus be able to see for himself how easy, how abundant, how sweetly attractive are the lessons to be found therein for the leading of an honest life. Let us take our stand in front of that earthly and divine home of holiness, the House of Nazareth. How much we have to learn from the daily life which was led within its walls! What an all-perfect model of domestic society! Here we behold simplicity and purity of conduct, perfect agreement and unbroken harmony, mutual respect and love not of the false and fleeting kind ― but that which finds both its life and its charm in devotedness of service. Here is the patient industry which provides what is required for food and raiment; which does so “in the sweat of the brow”, which is contented with little, and which seeks rather to diminish the number of its wants than to multiply the sources of its wealth. Better than all, we find there that supreme peace of mind and gladness of soul which never fail to accompany the possession of a tranquil conscience. These are precious examples of goodness, of modesty, of humility, of hard-working endurance, of kindness to others, of diligence in the small duties of daily life, and of other virtues, and once they have made their influence felt they gradually take root in the soul, and in course of time fail not to bring about a happy change of mind and conduct. Then will each one begin to feel his work to be no longer lowly and irksome, but grateful and lightsome, and clothed with a certain joyousness by his sense of duty in discharging it conscientiously. Then will gentler manners everywhere prevail; home-life will be loved and esteemed, and the relations of man with man will be loved and esteemed, and the relations of man with man will be hallowed by a larger infusion of respect and charity. And if this betterment should go forth from the individual to the family and to the communities, and thence to the people at large so that human life should be lifted up to this standard, no one will fail to feel how great and lasting indeed would be the gain which would be achieved for society.

REPUGNANCE TO SUFFERING OF ANY KIND

A second evil, one which is specially pernicious, and one which, owing to the increasing mischief which it works among souls, we can never sufficiently deplore, is to be found in repugnance to suffering and eagerness to escape whatever is hard or painful to endure. The greater number are thus robbed of that peace and freedom of mind which remains the reward of those who do what is right undismayed by the perils or troubles to be met with in doing so. Rather do they dream of a chimeric civilisation in which all that is unpleasant shall be removed, and all that is pleasant shall be supplied. By this passionate and unbridled desire of living a life of pleasure, the minds of men are weakened, and if they do not entirely succumb, they become demoralised and miserably cower and sink under the hardships of the battle of life.

In such a contest example is everything, and a powerful means of renewing our courage will undoubtedly be found in the Holy Rosary, if from our earliest years our minds have been trained to dwell upon the sorrowful mysteries of Our Lord’s life, and to drink in their meaning by sweet and silent meditation. In them we shall learn how Christ, “the Author and Finisher of Our faith”, began “to do and teach”, in order that we might see written in His example all the lessons that He Himself had taught us for the bearing of our burden of labour and sorrow, and mark how the sufferings which were hardest to bear were those which He embraced with the greatest measure of generosity and good will. We behold Him overwhelmed with sadness, so that drops of blood ooze like sweat from His veins. We see Him bound like a malefactor, subjected to the judgment of the unrighteous, laden with insults, covered with shame, assailed with false accusations, torn with scourges, crowned with thorns, nailed to the cross, accounted unworthy to live, and condemned by the voice of the multitude as deserving of death. Here, too, we contemplate the grief of the most Holy Mother, whose soul was not merely wounded but “pierced” by the sword of sorrow, so that she might be named and become in truth “the Mother of Sorrows”. Witnessing these examples of fortitude, not with sight but by faith, who is there who will not feel his heart grow warm with the desire of imitating them?

Then, be it that the “earth is accursed” and brings forth “thistles and thorns”, — be it that the soul is saddened with grief and the body with sickness; even so, there will be no evil which the envy of man or the rage of devils can invent, nor calamity which can fall upon the individual or the community, over which we shall not triumph by the patience of suffering. For this reason it has been truly said that “it belongs to the Christian to do and to endure great things”, for he who deserves to be called a Christian must not shrink from following in the footsteps of Christ. But by this patience, We do not mean that empty stoicism in the enduring of pain which was the ideal of some of the philosophers of old, but rather do We mean that patience which is learned from the example of Him, who “having joy set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame” (Hebrews xvi. 2). It is the patience which is obtained by the help of His grace; which shirks not a trial because it is painful, but which accepts it and esteems it as a gain, however hard it may be to undergo. The Catholic Church has always had, and happily still has, multitudes of men and women, in every rank and condition of life, who are glorious disciples of this teaching, and who, following faithfully in the path of Christ, suffer injury and hardship for the cause of virtue and religion. They re- echo, not with their lips, but with their life, the words of St. Thomas: “Let us also go, that we may die with him” (John xi. 16).

May such types of admirable constancy be more and more splendidly multiplied in our midst to the weal of society and to the glory and edification of the Church of God!

THE FORGETFULNESS OF THE FUTURE LIFE

The third evil for which a remedy is needed is one which is chiefly characteristic of the times in which we live. Men in former ages, although they loved the world, and loved it far too well, did not usually aggravate their sinful attachment to the things of Earth by a contempt of the things of Eeaven. Even the right-thinking portion of the pagan world recognised that this life was not a home but a dwelling-place, not our destination, but a stage in the journey. But men of our day, albeit they have had the advantages of Christian instruction, pursue the false goods of this world in such wise that the thought of their true Fatherland of enduring happiness is not only set aside, but, to their shame be it said, banished and entirely erased from their memory, notwithstanding the warning of St. Paul, “We have not here a lasting city, but we seek one which is to come” (Hebrews xiii. 4).

When We seek out the causes of this forgetfulness, We are met in the first place by the fact that many allow themselves to believe that the thought of a future life goes in some way to sap the love of our country, and thus militates against the prosperity of the commonwealth. No illusion could be more foolish or hateful. Our future hope is not of a kind which so monopolises the minds of men as to withdraw their attention from the interests of this life. Christ commands us, it is true, to seek the Kingdom of God, and in the first place, but not in such a manner as to neglect all things else. For, the use of the goods of the present life, and the righteous enjoyment which they furnish, may serve both to strengthen virtue and to reward it. The splendour and beauty of our earthly habitation, by which human society is ennobled, may mirror the splendor and beauty of our dwelling which is above. Therein we see nothing that is not worthy of the reason of man and of the wisdom of God. For the same God who is the Author of Nature is the Author of Grace, and He willed not that one should collide or conflict with the other, but that they should act in friendly alliance, so that under the leadership of both we may the more easily arrive at that immortal happiness for which we mortal men were created.

But men of carnal mind, who love nothing but themselves, allow their thoughts to grovel upon things of earth until they are unable to lift them to that which is higher. For, far from using the goods of time as a help towards securing those which are eternal, they lose sight altogether of the world which is to come, and sink to the lowest depths of degradation. We may doubt if God could inflict upon man a more terrible punishment than to allow him to waste his whole life in the pursuit of earthly pleasures, and in forgetfulness of the happiness which alone lasts for ever.

It is from this danger that they will be happily rescued, who, in the pious practice of the Rosary, are wont, by frequent and fervent prayer, to keep before their minds the glorious mysteries. These mysteries are the means by which in the soul of a Christian a most clear light is shed upon the good things, hidden to sense, but visible to faith, “which God has prepared for those who love Him”. From them we learn that death is not an annihilation which ends all things, but merely a migration and passage from life to life. By them we are taught that the path to Heaven lies open to all men, and as we behold Christ ascending thither, we recall the sweet words of His promise, “I go to prepare a place for you”. By them we are reminded that a time will come when “God will wipe away every tear from our eyes”, and that “neither mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow, shall be any more”, and that “We shall be always with the Lord”, and “like to the Lord, for we shall see Him as He is”, and “drink of the torrent of His delight”, as “fellow-citizens of the saints”, in the blessed companionship of our glorious Queen and Mother. Dwelling upon such a prospect, our hearts are kindled with desire, and we exclaim, in the words of a great saint, “How vile grows the earth when I look up to heaven!” Then, too, shall we feel the solace of the assurance “that which is at present momentary and light of our tribulation worketh for us above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory” (2 Corinthians iv. 17).

Here alone we discover the true relation between time and eternity, between our life on earth and our life in heaven; and it is thus alone that are formed strong and noble characters. When such characters can be counted in large numbers, the dignity and well-being of society are assured. All that is beautiful, good, and true will flourish in the measure of its conformity to Him who is of all beauty, goodness, and truth the first Principle and the Eternal Source”.