12 JULY – SAINT JOHN GUALBERT (Abbot)

Giovanni Gualberto was born in Florence to the noble family of Visdomini in about 995. While a soldier, his sole brother Hugh was slain. On Good Friday, John met the murderer alone and unarmed in a spot where they could not avoid each other. The murderer, with arms out stretched in the form of a cross, begged for mercy, and John, through reverence for the sacred sign, graciously spared him. Having changed his enemy into a brother, John went to pray in the nearby church of San Miniato. As he was adoring the image of Christ crucified, he saw it bend its head towards him. Touched by this miracle, John determined to fight for God alone, even against his father’s wishes. He cut off his hair and put on the monastic habit. Soon the pious and religious manner of his life shed made him a living rule and pattern of perfection. On the death of the Abbot of the place he was unanimously elected its superior, but preferring obedience to superiority, and being reserved by the divine Will for greater things, John went to Romuald who was living in the desert of Camaldoli. The latter, inspired by Heaven, announced to John the institute he was to form. Thus he laid the foundations of his Order of the Vallis Umbrosa under the Rule of Saint Benedict.

Soon afterwards many flocked to John. He received them into his society, and with them zealously devoted himself to rooting out heresy and simony, and propagating the Apostolic faith, for which devotedness he and his disciples suffered many injuries. His enemies, in their eagerness to destroy him and his brethren, suddenly attacked the monastery of San Salvi at night, burned the church, demolished the buildings and mortally wounded all the monks. But John restored them all to health by a single sign of the Cross. The monk Peter miraculously walked unhurt through a huge blazing fire, and thus John obtained for himself and his sons the peace they so much desired. From that time forward every stain of simony disappeared from Tuscany, and faith was restored to its former purity throughout Italy. John built many new monasteries and restored many others, both as to their material buildings and as to regular observance, strengthening them all with the bulwark of holy regulations. In order to feed the poor he sold the sacred vessels of the Altar. The elements were obedient to his will when he sought to check evil-doers, and the sign of the Cross was the sword he used by which to conquer the devils.

Worn out by abstinence, watchings, fasting, prayer, maceration of the flesh and old age, John became seriously ill. During his sickness he repeated unceasingly those words of David: “My soul has thirsted after the strong living God: when will I come and appear before the face of God?” When death drew near, he called together his disciples and exhorted them to preserve fraternal union. Then he caused these words to be written on a paper which he wished should be buried with him: “I, John, believe and confess the faith which the holy Apostles preached, and the holy Fathers in the four Councils have confirmed.” Having been honoured during three days with the gracious presence of Angels, John died, aged 78, Passignano in 1073. He was canonised by Pope Celestine III in 1193.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Never, from the day when Simon Magus was baptised at Samaria, had Hell seemed so near to conquering the Church as at the period brought before us by today’s feast. Rejected and anathematised by Peter, the new Simon had said to the princes, as the former had said to the Apostles: “Sell me this power, that upon whoever I will lay hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost.” And the princes, ready enough to supplant Peter and fill their coffers at the same time, had taken on themselves to invest men of their own choice with the government of the churches. The bishops in their turn had sold to the highest bidders the various orders of the hierarchy, and sensuality, ever in the wake of covetousness, had filled the sanctuary with defilement.

The tenth century had witnessed the humiliation of the supreme Pontificate itself. Early in the eleventh, simony was rife among the clergy. The work of salvation was going on in the silence of the cloister, but Peter Damian had not yet come forth from the desert, nor had Hugh of Cluny, Leo IX and Hildebrand brought their united efforts to bear upon the evil. A single voice was heard to utter the cry of alarm and rouse the people from their lethargy: it was the voice of a monk who had once been a valiant soldier, and to whom the crucifix had bowed its head in recognition of his generous forgiveness of an enemy. John Gualbert, seeing simony introduced into his own monastery of San Miniato, left it and entered Florence, only to find the pastoral staff in the hands of a hireling. The zeal of God’s House was devouring his heart, and going into the public squares, he denounced the Bishop and his own Abbot, that thus he might at least deliver his own soul.

At the sight of this monk confronting single-handed the universal corruption, the multitude was for a moment seized with stupefaction. But soon surprise was turned into rage, and John with difficulty escaped death. From this day his special vocation was determined: the just, who had never despaired, hailed him as the avenger of Israel, and their hope was not to be confounded. But, like all who are chosen for a divine work, he was to spend a long time under the training of the Holy Spirit. The athlete had challenged the powers of this world. The holy war was declared: one would naturally have expected it to wage without ceasing until the enemy was entirely defeated. And yet, the chosen soldier of Christ hastened into solitude to “amend his life,” according to the truly Christian expression used in the foundation-charter of Vallombrosa. The promoters of the disorder, startled at the suddenness of the attack, and then seeing the aggressor as suddenly disappear, would laugh at the false alarm. But, cost what it might to the once brilliant soldier, he knew how to abide in humility and submission the hour of God’s good pleasure.

Little by little other souls, disgusted with the state of society, came to join him. And soon the army of prayer and penance spread throughout Tuscany. It was destined to extend over all Italy, and even to cross the mountains. Settimo, seven miles from Florence, and San Salvi at the gates of the city, were the strongholds whence the holy war was to recommence in 1063. Another simoniac, Peter of Favia, had purchased the succession to the episcopal see. John, with all his monks, was resolved rather to die than to witness in silence this new insult offered to the Church of God. His reception this time was to be very different from the former, for the fame of his sanctity and miracles had caused him to be looked upon by the people as an oracle. No sooner was his voice heard once more in Florence than the whole flock was so stirred that the unworthy pastor, seeing he could no longer dissemble, cast off his disguise and showed what he really was: a thief who had come only to rob and kill and destroy. By his orders a body of armed men descended upon San Salvi, set fire to the monastery, fell upon the brethren in the midst of the Night Office, and put them all to the sword, each monk continuing to chant till he received the fatal stroke. John Gualbert, hearing at Vallombrosa of the martyrdom of his sons, intoned a canticle of triumph. Florence was seized with horror and refused to communicate with the assassin bishop. Nevertheless four years had yet to elapse before deliverance could come, and the trials of Saint John had scarcely begun.

Saint Peter Damian, invested with full authority by the Sovereign Pontiff, had just arrived from the Eternal City. All expected that no quarter would be given to simony by its sworn enemy, and that peace would be restored to the afflicted Church. The very contrary took place. The greatest saints may be mistaken, and so become to one another the cause of sufferings by so much the more bitter as their will, being less subject to caprice than that of other men, remains more firmly set on the course they have adopted for the interests of God and His Church. Perhaps the great bishop of Ostia did not sufficiently take into consideration the exceptional position in which the Florentines were placed by the notorious simony of Peter of Pavia, and the violent manner in which he put to death, without form of trial, all who dared to withstand him. Starting from the indisputable principle that inferiors have no right to depose their superiors, the legate reprehended the conduct of the monks, and of all who had separated themselves from the bishop. There was but one refuge for them, the Apostolic See, to which they fearlessly appealed: a proceeding which no one could call uncanonical. But there, says the historian, many who feared for themselves, rose up against them, declaring that these monks were worthy of death for having dared to attack the prelates of the Church, while Peter Damian severely reproached them before the whole Roman Council. The holy and glorious Pope Alexander II took the monks under his own protection and praised the uprightness of their intention. Yet he dared not comply with their request and proceed further because the greater number of the bishops sided with Peter of Pavia. The archdeacon Hildebrand alone was entirely in favour of the Abbot of Vallombrosa.

Nevertheless the hour was at hand when God Himself would pronounce the judgement refused them by men. While overwhelmed with threats and treated as lambs among wolves, John Gualbert and his sons cried to heaven with the Psalmist: “Arise, O Lord, and help us. Arise, why do you sleep, O Lord? Arise, O God, and judge our cause.” At Florence the storm continued to rage. Saint Saviour’s at Settimo had become the refuge of such of the clergy as were banished from the town by the persecution. The holy founder, who was then residing in that monastery, multiplied in their behalf the resources of his charity. At length the situation became so critical that one day in Lent of the year 1067 the rest of the clergy and the whole population left the simoniac alone in his deserted palace and fled to Settimo. Neither the length of the road deep in mud from the rain, nor the rigorous fast observed by all, says the narrative written at that very time to the Sovereign Pontiff by the clergy and people of Florence, could stay the most delicate matrons, women about to become mothers, or even children. Evidently the Holy Ghost was actuating the crowd. They called for the judgement of God. John Gualbert, under the inspiration of the same Holy Spirit, gave his consent to the trial, and in testimony of the truth of the accusation brought by him against the Bishop of Florence, Peter, one of his monks, since known as Peter Igneus, walked slowly before the eyes of the multitude through an immense fire without receiving the smallest injury. Heaven had spoken: the Bishop was deposed by Rome, and ended his days a happy penitent in that very monastery of Settimo.

In 1073, the year in which his friend Hildebrand was raised to the Apostolic See, John was called to God. His influence against simony had reached far beyond Tuscany. The Republic of Florence ordered his feast to be kept as a holiday, and the following words were engraved upon his tomb-stone:

TO JOHN GUALBERT, CITIZEN OF FLORENCE, DELIVERER OF ITALY.

O TRUE disciple of the New Law, who knew how to spare an enemy for the love of the Holy Cross, teach us to practise, as you did, the lessons conveyed by the instrument of our salvation, which will then become to us, as to you, a weapon ever victorious over the powers of Hell. Could we look on the Cross and then refuse to forgive our brother an injury, when God Himself not only forgets our heinous offences against His Sovereign Majesty, but even died on the Tree to expiate them? The most generous pardon a creature can grant is but a feeble shadow of the pardon we daily obtain from our Father in Heaven. Still, the Gospel which the Church sings in your honour may well teach us that the love of our enemies is the nearest resemblance we can have to our heavenly Father, and the sign that we are truly His children.

You had, O John, this grand trait of resemblance. He who in virtue of His eternal generation is the true Son of God by nature, recognised in you the mark of nobility which made you His brother. When He bowed His sacred Head to you, He saluted in you the character of a child of God which you had just so beautifully maintained: a title a thousand times more glorious than those of your noble ancestry. What a powerful germ was the Holy Ghost planting at that moment in your heart! And how richly does God recompense a single generous act! Your sanctification, the glorious share you took take in the Church’s victory, the fecundity by which you live still in the Order sprung from you: all these choice graces for your own soul and for so many others, hung on that critical moment. Fate, or the Justice of God, as your contemporaries would have said, had brought your enemy within your power: how would you treat him? He was deserving of death, and in those days every man was his own avenger. Had you then inflicted due punishment on him, your reputation would have rather increased than diminished. You would have obtained the esteem of your comrades, but the only glory which is of any worth before God, indeed the only glory which lasts long even in the sight of men, would never have been yours. Who would have known you at the present day? Who would have felt the admiration and gratitude with which your very name now inspires the children of the Church?

The Son of God, seeing that your dispositions were conformable to those of His Sacred Heart, filled you with His own jealous love of the holy City for whose redemption He shed His Blood. O you that were zealous for the beauty of the Bride, watch over her still. Deliver her from hirelings who would fain receive from men the right of holding the place of the Bride groom. In our days venality is less to be feared than compromise. Simony would take another form. There is not so much danger of bribery, as of fawning, paying homage, making advances, entering into implicit contracts: all which proceedings are as contrary to the holy Canons, as are pecuniary transactions. And after all, is the evil any the less for taking a milder form, if it enables princes to bind the Church again in fetters such as you laboured to break? Suffer not, O John Gualbert, such a misfortune which would be the forerunner of terrible disasters. Continue to support with your powerful arm the common Mother of men. Obtain for Christians of every condition the courage required for the warfare in which all are bound to engage.

On this same day the whole Church unites in the solemn homage which Milan continues to pay, after a lapse of [eighteen] centuries, to two valiant witnesses of Christ. “Our martyrs Felix and Nabor,” says Saint Ambrose, “are the grain of mustard-seed mentioned in the Gospel. They possessed the good odour of faith, though it did not appear to men. Persecution arose, they laid down their arms, and bowed their heads to the sword, and immediately the grace that was hidden within them was shed abroad even to the ends of the world so that we can now in all truth say of them: Their sound has gone forth into all the Earth.”

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

In Cyprus, St. Jason, one of the first disciples of Christ.

At Aquileia, the birthday of St. Hermagoras, a disciple of the Evangelist St. Mark, and first bishop of that city. While occupied in performing miraculous cures, in preaching frequently and bringing souls to repentance, he suffered many kinds of torments, and finally by capital punishment, merited an immortal triumph with his deacon Fortunatus.

At Lucca in Tuscany, blessed Paulinus, who was consecrated first bishop of that city by the blessed Apostle St. Peter. Under Nero, after many combats, he terminated his martyrdom with some companions at the foot of Mount Pisa.

The same day, the Saints Proclus and Hilarion, who won the palm of martyrdom after most bitter torments in the time of the emperor Trajan and the governor Maximus.

At Lentini, St. Epiphana, who, after having her breasts cut off, died in the time of the emperor Diocletian and the governor Tertillus.

At Toledo, St. Marciana, virgin and martyr. For the faith of Christ, she was exposed to the beasts, torn to pieces by a bull, and was thus crowned with martyrdom.

At Lyons, St. Viventiolus, bishop.

At Bologna, St. Paternian, bishop.

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

Thanks be to God.

11 JULY – SAINT PIUS I (Pope and Martyr)

 

Pius I, the first of this name, was a citizen of Aquileia and the son of the priest Rufinus. He succeeded Saint Hyginus to the See of Peter in about 140 AD and governed the Church during the reigns of Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He ordered the feast of Easter to be observed on a Sunday. It was Pius I who transformed the house of Senator Pudens into a church, and because it surpassed other titles in order of dignity as Peter and other Popes had dwelt there, he consecrated it under the title of Pastor. Pius endured much hardship during his pontificate. He opposed the heretical Valentinians and Gnostics and excommunicated Marcion of Sinope, a bishop who taught that the God of the Old Testament was inferior to the God of the New Testament. Pius died in about 167 AD.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

A holy Pope of the second century, the first of the nine until graced with the name of Pius, rejoices us today with his mild and gentle light. Although Christian society was in a precarious condition under the edicts of persecution, which even the best of the pagan emperors never abrogated, our Saint profited by the comparative peace enjoyed by the Church under Antoninus Pius to strengthen the foundations of the mysterious tower raised by the divine Shepherd to the honour of the Lord God. He ordained by his supreme authority that, notwithstanding the contrary custom observed in certain places, the feast of Easter should be celebrated on a Sunday throughout the entire Church. The importance of this measure and its effects on the whole Church will be brought before us on the feast of Saint Victor who succeeded Pius at the close of the century.

The ancient legend of Saint Pius I which has lately been altered, made mention of the decree attributed in the Corpus Juris to our Pontiff concerning those who should carelessly let fall any portion of the Precious Blood of our Lord. The prescriptions are such as evince the profound reverence the Pope would have to be shown towards the Mystery of the Altar. The penance enjoined is to be of forty days if the Precious Blood have fallen to the ground, and wherever It fell, It must if possible be taken up with the lips, the dust must be burned, and the ashes of it thrown into a consecrated place.

We call to mind, O glorious Pontiff, those words written under your eye, which seem to be a commentary on your decree concerning the Sacred Mysteries: “We receive not,” cried Justin the Philosopher to the world of that second century: “We receive not as common bread, nor as common drink, the food which we call the Eucharist; but just as Jesus Christ our Saviour, being made flesh by the word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so have we been taught that the food made Eucharist by the prayer formed of His own word, is both the Flesh and the Blood of this Jesus who is made flesh” (Apologia. i. 66.). This doctrine, and the measures it so fully justifies, found towards the close of the same century other authentic witnesses who, in their turn, would almost seem to be quoting from the prescriptions at tributed to you. “We are in the greatest distress,” said Tertullian, “if the least drop from our chalice, or the least crumb of our Bread fall to the ground” (De Corona iii). And Origen appealed to the initiated to bear witness to “the care and veneration with which the sacred gifts were surrounded, for fear the smallest particle should fall which, if it happened through negligence, would be considered a crime” (In Ex. Homil. xiii). And yet in our days heresy, as destitute of knowledge as of faith, pretends that the Church has departed from her ancient traditions by paying exaggerated homage to the divine Sacrament. Obtain for us, O Pius, the grace to return to the spirit of our fathers: not indeed with regard to their faith, for that we have kept inviolate, but as to the veneration and love with which that faith inspired them for the Chalice of Inebriation, that richest treasure of earth. May the Pasch of the Lamb unite, as you desired, in one uniform celebration, all who have the honour to bear the name of Christian!

10 JULY – THE SEVEN BROTHERS (Martyrs) AND SAINTS RUFFINA AND SECUNDA (Virgins and Martyrs)

Alexander, Felix, Januarius, Philip, Silvanus, Vitalis and Martial, the seven sons of Saint Felicitas, were martyred after Felicitas told them: “Look up to Heaven, where Jesus Christ with His saints expects you. Be faithful in His love, and fight courageously for your souls.” The Prefect ordered that she be beaten for her insolence, and after refusing to worship the pagan gods of Rome, her children were whipped and imprisoned. Antoninus Pius ordered that they be sent to different judges and be condemned to different deaths. Januarius was scourged to death, Felix and Philip were beaten to death with clubs, Silvanus was thrown head-long into the Tiber, and Alexander, Vitalis and Martial were beheaded, as was Felicitas. Felix and Philip were buried in the cemetery of Saint Priscilla. Martial, Vitalis and Alexander were intered in the cemetery known as the “Jordanorum,” Januarius in that of Saint Praetextatus, and Silvanus was laid to rest in the cemetery of Saint Maximus.

Ruffina and Secunda were the twin virgin daughters of the Roman nobles Asterius and Aurelia. At a young age they were betrothed to the young patricians Armentarius and Verinus. Terrified by the persecution of Christians under Valerian and Gallienus, the promised husbands renounced their faith, but Ruffina and Seconda persevered to the end. After being tortured they were martyred on the Via Cornelia in 257 AD.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Three times within the next few days will the number seven appear in the holy Liturgy, honouring the Blessed Trinity and proclaiming the reign of the Holy Spirit with His sevenfold grace. Felicitas, Symphorosa and the mother of the Machabees, each in turn will lead her seven sons to the feet of Eternal Wisdom. The Church, bereaved of her Apostolic founders, pursues her course undaunted, for the teaching of Peter and Paul is defended by the testimony of martyrdom, and when persecutions have ceased, by that of holy virginity. Moreover, “the blood of martyrs is the seed of Christians” (Tertullian). The heroes who in life were the strength of the Bride give her fecundity by their death, and the family of God’s children continues to increase. Great indeed was the faith of Abraham when he hoped against all hope that he would become the father of nations through that same Isaac whom he was commanded to slay: but did Felicitas show less faith when she recognised in the immolation of her seven children the triumph of life and the highest blessing that could be bestowed on her motherhood?

Honour be to her, and to those who resemble her! The worldly-wise may scorn them, but they are like noble rivers transforming the desert into a paradise of God and fertilising the soil of the gentile world after the ravages of the first age. Marcus Aurelius had just ascended the throne to prove himself during a reign of nineteen years nothing but a second-rate pupil of the sectarian rhetors of the second century whose narrow views and hatred of Christian simplicity he embraced alike in policy and in philosophy. These men, created by him prefects and proconsuls, raised the most cold blooded persecution the Church has ever known. The scepticism of this imperial philosopher did not exempt him from the general rule that where dogma is rejected, superstition takes its place. And monarch and people were of one accord in seeking a remedy for public calamities in the rites newly brought from the East, and in the extermination of the Christians. The assertion that the massacres of those days were carried on without the prince’s sanction, not only does not excuse him, it is moreover false. It is now a proven truth that foremost among the tyrants who destroyed the flower of the human race, stands Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, stained more than Domitian or even Nero with the blood of Martyrs.

The seven sons of Saint Felicitas were the first victims offered by the prince to satisfy the philosophy of his courtiers, the superstition of the people and, be it said, his own convictions, unless we would have him to be the most cowardly of men. It was he himself who ordered the prefect Publius to entice to apostasy this noble family whose piety angered the gods. It was he again who, after hearing the report of the cause, pronounced the sentence and decreed that it should be executed by several judges in different places, the more publicly to make known the policy of the new reign. The arena opened at the same time in all parts not only of Rome, but of the empire. The personal interference of the sovereign intimated to the hesitating magistrates the line of conduct to pursue if they wished to court the imperial favour. Felicitas soon followed her sons. Justin the philosopher found out by experience what was the sincerity of Caesar’s love of truth. Every class yielded its contingent of victims to the tortures which this would-be wise master of the world deemed necessary for the safety of the empire. At length, that his reign might close as it had begun in blood, a rescript of the so-called mild emperor sanctioned wholesale massacres. Humanity, lowered by the unjust flattery heaped on this wretched prince even up to our own day, was thus duly rehabilitated by the noble courage of a slave such as Blandina, or of a patrician such as Caecilia.

Never before had the south-wind swept so impetuously through the garden of the Spouse, scattering far and wide the perfume of myrrh and spices. Never before had the Church, like an army set in array, appeared despite her weakness so invincible as now, when she was sustaining the prolonged assault of Caesarisin and false science from without, in league with heresy within. Want of space forbids us to enter into the details of a question which is now beginning to be more carefully studied, yet is far from being thoroughly understood. Under cover of the pretended moderation of the Antonines, Hell was exerting its most skilful endeavours against Christianity at the very period which opened with the martyrdom of the Seven Brothers. If the Caesars of the third century attacked the Church with a fury and a refinement of cruelty unknown to Marcus Aurelius, it was but as a wild beast taking a fresh spring on the prey that had well near escaped him.

Such being the case, no wonder that the Church has from the very beginning paid special honour to these seven heroes, the pioneers of that decisive struggle which was to prove her impregnable to all the powers of Hell. Was there ever a more sublime scene in that spectacle which the saints have to present to the world? If there was ever a combat which angels and men could equally applaud, it was surely this of the 10th July 162 when in four different suburbs of the Eternal City, these seven patrician youths, led by their heroic mother, opened the campaign which was to rescue Rome from these upstart Caesars and restore her to her immortal destinies. After their triumph, four cemeteries shared the honour of gathering into their crypts the sacred remains of the martyrs, and the glorious tombs have in our own day furnished the Christian archaeologist with matter for valuable research and learned writings. As far back as we can ascertain from the most authentic monuments, the 6th of the Ides of July was marked on the calendars of the Roman Church as a day of special solemnity on account of the four stations where the faithful assembled round the tombs of “the Martyrs.” This name, given by excellence to the seven brothers, was preserved to them even in time of peace — an honour by so much the greater as there had been torrents of blood shed under Diocletian. Inscriptions of the fourth century, found even in those cemeteries which never possessed their relics, designate the 11th July as the “day following the feast of the Martyrs”

The honours of this day on which the Church sings the praises of true fraternity, are shared by two valiant sisters. A century had passed over the empire, and the Antonines were no more. Valerian, who at first seemed, like them, desirous of obtaining a character for moderation, soon began to follow them along the path of blood. In order to strike a decisive blow, he issued a decree whereby all the principal ecclesiastics were condemned to death without distinction, and every Christian of rank was bound under the heaviest penalties to abjure his faith. It is to this edict that Rufina and Secunda owed the honour of crossing their palms with those of Sixtus and Lawrence, Cyprian and Hippolytus. They belonged to the noble family of the Turcii Asterii, whose history has been brought to light by modern discovery. According to the prescriptions of Valerian, which condemned Christian women to no more than confiscation and exile, they ought to have escaped death. But to the crime of fidelity to God they added that of holy virginity, and so the roses of martyrdom were twined into their lily-wreaths. Their sacred relics lie in Saint John Lateran’s, close to the baptistery of Constantine. And the second Cardinalitial See, that of Porto, couples with this title the name of Santa Rufina, thus claiming the protection of the blessed martyrs.

“Praise the Lord, you children, praise the Name of the Lord: who makes the barren woman to dwell in a house, the joyful mother of children.” Such is the opening chant of this morning’s Mass. But say, O blessed ones, was your admirable mother barren who gave seven martyrs to the Earth? Fecundity according to this world counts for nothing before God. This is not the fruitfulness intended by that blessing which fell from the lips of the Lord when in the beginning He made man to His own image. “Increase and multiply” was spoken to a holy one, a son of God, bidding him propagate a divine offspring. As the first creation, so was all future birth to be: man, in communicating his own existence to others, was to transmit to them at the same time the life of their Father in Heaven. The natural and the supernatural life were to be as inseparable as a building and its foundation. Nature without grace would be but a frame without a picture. All too soon did sin destroy the harmony of the divine plan. Nature violently separated from grace could produce only sons of wrath. Yet God was too rich in mercy to abandon the design of His immense love, and having in the first instance created us to be His children, He would now re-create us as such in His Word made Flesh. Reduced to a shadow of what it would have been, the union of Adam and Eve, unable to give birth immediately to sons of God, was dismantled of that glory beside which the sublime privileges of the Angels would have paled: nevertheless it was still the figure of the great mystery of Christ and the Church. Sterile according to God and doomed to the death she had brought upon her race, it was only by participation in the merits of the second Eve that the first could be called the mother of the living. Great honour indeed was still to be hers, and she would be able in part to repair her fall, but on condition of yielding to the rights of the Bride of the second Adam. Far better than Pharaoh’s daughter rescuing Moses and confiding him to Jochabed, could the Church say to every mother on receiving her babe from the waters: “Take this child and nurse him for me.” And every Christian mother, anxious to correspond to the Church’s trust in her and proud of being able to realise God’s primitive intentions, might well repeat with regard to this second childbirth those words uttered by a superhuman love: “My little children, of whom I am in labour again, until Christ be formed in you” (Galatians iv. 19). Shame on her that would forget the sublime destiny of her child to be a son of God! A far less crime would it be, were she, through negligence or by design, to stifle in him by an education exclusively directed to the senses, that intelligence which distinguishes man from the animals subjected to his power. For the attainment of man’s true end, the supernatural life is more necessary than the life of reason. For a mother to make no account of it, and to suffer the divine germ to perish after being planted in the infant’s soul at its new birth from the sacred font, would be to do to death the frail being that owed its existence to her.

Far otherwise, O martyrs, did your illustrious mother understand her mission! Hence, though her memory is honoured on the day when four months after you she quitted this Earth, yet this present feast is the chief monument of her glory. She, more than yourselves, is celebrated in the readings and chants of the Holy Sacrifice and in the lessons of the Night Office. And why is this? Because, says Saint Gregory, being already the handmaid of Christ by faith, she has today become His mother, according to our Lord’s own word, by giving Him a new birth in each of her seven sons. After having made such a complete holocaust of you to your heavenly Father, what will her own martyrdom be but the long-desired close of her widowhood, the happy hour which will reunite her in glory to you who are doubly her sons? Hence forward, then, on this day which was to her the day of suffering, but not of reward, when after passing seven times over through tortures and death, she had yet to remain in banishment, it is but just that her children should rise and make over to her, as of right, the honours of the triumph. Henceforth, though still an exile, she is clothed with purple, dyed not twice, but seven times. The richest daughters of Eve own that she has surpassed them all in the fruitfulness of martyrdom. Her own works praise her in the assembly of the saints. On this day, O sons and mother, and you two noble sisters who share in their glory, listen to our prayers, protect the Church and make the whole world heedful of the teaching conveyed by your beautiful example!

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

In Africa, the holy martyrs Januarius, Marinus, Nabor and Felix who were beheaded.

At Nicopolis in Armenia, the holy martyrs Leontius, Mauritius, Daniel and their companions, who after being tortured in different manners, were finally cast into the fire, and thus terminated their long martyrdom, in the time of the emperor Licinius and the governor Lysias.

In Pisidia, the holy martyrs Bianor and Silvanus, who merited an immortal crown by being decapitated after enduring most bitter torments for the name of Christ.

At Iconium, St. Apollonius, martyr, who consummated his glorious martyrdom by death on the cross.

At Ghent, St. Amelberga, virgin.

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

Thanks be to God.

9 JULY – SAINT VERONICA GIULIANI (Virgin)

Veronica was born in 1660 in Mercatello near Urbino in Italy to Francesco Giuliana and Benedetta Mancini. She was baptised Ursula and from a very young age was blessed with heavenly visions and other supernatural gifts. In 1677 she entered the convent of the Capuchin Poor Clares in Città di Castello and took the name Veronica in memory of the Passion of Christ. In 1694 she received the impression of the Crown of Thorns as a visible wound and despite medical treatment obtained no relief from the permanent pain caused by it. She was novice-mistress for 34 years until her election as abbess in 1716. She died in 1727 at Città di Castello and was canonised by Pope Gregory XVI in 1839.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Rome, in the place called the Drop-ever-falling, the birthday of St. Zeno, and ten thousand two hundred and three other martyrs.

At Gortyna in Crete, in the persecution of Decius under the governor Lucius, St. Cyril, a bishop, who was thrown into the flames without being injured, though his bonds were burnt. The judge, struck with awe at so great a miracle, set him at liberty, but as the saint began again immediately to preach the faith of Christ with zeal, he was beheaded.

In the town of Thora, on lake Velino, in Italy, the martyrdom of Saints Anatolia and Audax under the emperor Decius. Anatolia, a virgin consecrated to Christ, cured, through the whole province of Picenum (now Ancona), many persons labouring under various infirmities, and made them believe in Christ. By order of the judge Fustinian she was condemned to various kinds of punishments. She was cured of the sting of a serpent to which she had been exposed, a miracle which converted Audax to the faith. Finally she was transpierced with a sword, while her hands were extended in prayer. Audax was committed to prison, and being without delay sentenced to capital punishment, obtained the crown of a martyr.

At Alexandria, the holy martyrs Patermuthius, Copres, and Alexander who were put to death under Julian the Apostate.

At Briel in Holland, the martyrdom of the 19 martyrs of Gorcum. For vindicating the authority of the Roman Church and the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, they endured various ignominies and torments from the Calvinist heretics, and ended their suffering by being put to death. In 1867 Blessed Pius IX placed them among the holy martyrs.

At Martula, St. Brixius, bishop. Under the judge Marcian, after having suffered much for the confession of Our Lord and converted to Christ a great multitude of people, he rested in peace.

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

Thanks be to God.

8 JULY – SAINT ELIZABETH OF PORTUGAL (Queen and Widow)

Elizabeth was born in 1271 to King Peter II of Aragon. As a presage of her future sanctity, her parents, contrary to custom, passing over the mother and grandmother, gave her in Baptism the name of her maternal great-aunt, Saint Elizabeth, Duchess of Thuringia. No sooner was she born than it became evident what a blessed peacemaker she was to be between kings and kingdoms, for the joy of her birth put a happy period to the miserable quarrels of her father and grandfather. As she grew up, her father, admiring the natural abilities of his daughter, was wont to assert that Elizabeth would far outstrip in virtue all the women descended of the royal blood of Aragon. And so great was his veneration for her heavenly manner of life, her contempt of worldly ornaments, her abhorrence of pleasure, her assiduity in fasting, prayer and works of charity, that he attributed to her merits alone the prosperity of his kingdom and estate. On account of her widespread reputation, her hand was sought by many princes. At length she was, with all the ceremonies of holy Church, united in matrimony with Dionysius, king of Portugal.

In the married state she gave herself up to the exercise of virtue and the education of her children, striving to please her husband, but still more to please God. For nearly half the year she lived on bread and water alone, and on one occasion when, in an illness, she had refused to take the wine prescribed by the physician, her water was miraculously changed into wine. She instantaneously cured a poor woman of a loathsome ulcer by kissing it. In the depth of winter she changed the money she was going to distribute to the poor into roses, in order to conceal it from the king. She gave sight to a virgin born blind, healed many other persons of grievous distempers by the mere sign of the Cross, and performed a great number of other miracles of a like nature. She built and amply endowed monasteries, hospitals and churches. She was admirable for her zeal in composing the differences of kings, and unwearied in her efforts to alleviate the public and private miseries of mankind.

After the death of King Dionysius, Elizabeth, who had been in her youth a model to virgins, and in her married life to wives, became in her solitude a pattern of all virtues to widows. She immediately put on the religious habit of Saint Clare, assisted with the greatest fortitude at the king’s funeral, and then, proceeding to Compostella, offered there for the repose of his soul a quantity of silk, silver, gold and precious stones. On her return home she consumed in holy and pious works all she had that was dear and precious to her. She completed the building of her truly royal monastery of virgins at Coimbra and, wholly engaged in feeding the poor, protecting widows, sheltering orphans and assisting the afflicted in every way, she lived not for herself, but for the glory of God and the well-being of men. On her way to the noble town of Estremoz, where she was going in order to make peace between the two kings, her son and son-in-law, she was seized with illness. And, in that town, after having been visited by the Blessed Virgin, Mother of God, she died in 1336. She was canonised by Pope Urban VIII in 1625.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

In the footsteps of Margaret of Scotland and of Clotilde of France, a third Queen comes to shed her brightness on the sacred Cycle. Born at the southern extremity of Christendom where it borders on Muslim lands, she was destined by the Holy Ghost to seal with peace the victories of Christ and prepare the way for fresh conquests. The blessed name of Elizabeth, which for half a century had been rejoicing the world with its sweet perfume, was given to her, foretelling that this new-born child, as though attracted by the roses which fell from the mantle of her Thuringian aunt, was to cause these same heavenly flowers to blossom in Iberia. There is a mysterious heirship among the saints of God. The same year in which one niece of Elizabeth of Thuringia was born in Spain, another, the Blessed Margaret of Hungary, took her flight to Heaven. She had been consecrated to God from her mother’s womb as a pledge for the salvation of her people in the midst of terrible disasters. And the hopes so early centred in her were not frustrated. A short life of twenty-eight years spent in innocence and prayer, earned for her country the blessings of peace and civilisation, and then Margaret bequeathed to our Saint of today the mission of continuing in another land the work of her holy predecessors.

The time had come for our Lord to shed a ray of His grace on Spain. The thirteenth century was closing, leaving the world in a state of dismemberment and ruin. Weary of fighting for Christ, kings dismissed the Church from their councils and selfishly kept aloof, preferring their own ambitious strifes to the common aspiration of the once great body of Christendom. Such a state of things was disastrous for the entire West. Much more, then, for that noble country where the Crusade had multiplied kingdoms as so many outposts against the common enemy, the Moors. Unity of views and the sacrifice of all things to the great work of deliverance could alone maintain in the successors of Pelayo the spirit of the grand memories of yore. Unfortunately these princes, though heroes on the battle field, had not sufficient strength of mind to lay aside their petty quarrels and take up the sacred duty entrusted to them by Providence. In vain did the Roman Pontiff strive to awaken them to the interests of their country and of the Christian name. These hearts, generous in other respects, were too stifled by miserable passions to heed his voice, and the Muslim looked on delightedly at these intestine strifes, which retarded his own defeat. Navarre, Castile, Aragon and Portugal were not only at war with each other; but even within each of these kingdoms, father and son were at enmity, and brother disputed with brother, inch by inch, the heritage of his ancestors.

Who was to restore to Spain the still recent traditions of her Ferdinand III? Who was to gather again these dissentient wills into one, so as to make them a terror to the Saracen and a glory to Christ? James I of Aragon, who rivalled Saint Ferdinand both in bravery and in conquests, had married Yoland, daughter of Andrew of Hungary, upon which the cultus of the holy Duchessof Thuringia, whose brother-in-law he had thus become, was introduced beyond the Pyrenees. And the name of Elizabeth, changed in most cases into Isabel, became, as it were, a family jewel with which the Spanish princesses have loved to be adorned. The first to bear it was the daughter of James and Yoland, who married Philip III of France, successor of Saint Louis. The second was the grand-daughter of the same James I, the Saint whom the Church honours today, and of whom the old king, with prophetic insight, loved to say, that she would surpass all the women of the race of Aragon.

Inheriting not only the name, but also the virtues of the “dear Saint Elizabeth,” she would one day deserve to be called “the mother of peace and of her country.” By means of her heroic self-renunciation and all-powerful prayer, she repressed the lamentable quarrels of princes. One day, unable to prevent peace being broken, she cast herself between two contending armies under a very hailstorm of arrows, and so forced the soldiers to lay down their fratricidal arms. Thus she paved the way for the happy event which she herself was not to have the consolation of seeing: the re-organisation of that great enterprise for the expulsion of the Moors, which was not to close till the following century under the auspices of another Isabel, her worthy descendant, who would add to her name the beautiful title of “the Catholic.”

Four years after Elizabeth’s death, the victory of Salado was gained by the united armies of all Spain over 600,000 infidels, showing how a woman could, under most adverse circumstances, inaugurate a brilliant Crusade to the immortal fame of her country.

* * * * *

O BLESSED Elizabeth, we praise God for your holy works, as the Church this day invites all her sons to do. More valiant than those princes in whose midst you appeared as the angel of your fatherland, you exhibited in your private life a heroism which could equal theirs when need was, even on the battle field. God’s grace was the motive-power of your actions, and His glory their sole end. Often does God gain more glory by abnegations hidden from all eyes but His, than by great works justly admired by a whole people. It is because the power of His grace shines forth the more. And it is generally the way of His Providence to cause the most remarkable blessings bestowed on nations to spring from these hidden sources. How many battles celebrated in history have first been fought and won in the sight of the Blessed Trinity, in some hidden spot of that supernatural world, where the elect are ever at war with Hell, no, struggle at times even with God Himself! How many famous treaties of peace have first been concluded between Heaven and Earth in the secret of a single soul as a reward for those giant struggles which men misunderstand and despise! Let the fashion of this world pass away, and those deep-thinking politicians who are said to rule the course of events, the proud negotiators and warriors of renown, all, when judged, by the light of eternity, will appear for what they are: mere deceptions screening from the sight of men the only names truly worthy of immortality.

Glory then be to you, through whom the Lord has deigned to lift a corner of the veil that hides from the world the true rulers of its destinies. In the golden book of the elect, your nobility rests on better titles than those of birth. Daughter and mother of kings, yourself a queen, you ruled over a glorious land. But far more glorious is the family throne in Heaven, where you reign with the first Elizabeth, with Margaret and with Hedwige, and where others will come to join you, doing honour to the same noble blood which flowed in your veins. Remember, O mother of your country, that the power given to you on Earth is not diminished now that the God of armies has called you to your heavenly triumph. Spain and Portugal have fallen away from their noble traditions: lead them back to the right path, that they may attain the glorious destiny marked out for them by Providence. Your power in Heaven is not restrained within the borders of a kingdom. Cast then a look of mercy on the rest of the world: see how nations, recognising no right but might, waste their wealth and their vitality in wholesale bloodshed. Has the time come for those terrible wars, which are to be harbingers of the end, and in which in the world will work its own destruction? O mother of peace, hear how the Church, the mother of nations, implores you to make full use of your sublime prerogative. Put a stop to these furious strifes, and make our life on Earth a path of peace, leading up to the joys of eternity.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

In Asia Minor, the Saints Aquila and his wife Priscilla, of whom mention is made in the Acts of the Apostles.

At Porto, fifty holy soldiers, martyrs, who were led to the faith by the martyrdom of St. Bonosa, and baptised by the blessed Pope Felix. They were put to death in the persecution of Aurelian.

In Palestine, in the reign of Diocletian, St. Procopius, martyr, who was brought from Scythopolis to Caesarea, and upon his first resolute answer was beheaded by the judge Fabian.

At Constantinople, the holy Abrahamite monks, who resisted the emperor Theophilus by defending the worship of holy images, and suffered martyrdom.

At Wurtzburg in Germany, St. Kilian, bishop, who was commissioned by the Roman Pontiff to preach the Gospel. After having converted many to Christ, he was put to death with his companions, Colman, a priest, and Totnan, a deacon.

At Rome, the blessed Eugenius II, pope. Having gained a great reputation for sanctity and prudence in his government of the monastery of Saints Vincent and Anastasius, he was raised to the Sovereign Pontificate and ruled over the universal Church with much holiness. Blessed Pius IX approved and confirmed the veneration paid to him.

At Treves, St. Auspicius, bishop and confessor.

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

Thanks be to God.

7 JULY – SAINTS CYRIL AND METHODIUS (Bishops and Confessors)

Cyril (baptised Constantine) and Methodius were brothers born in Thessalonica to a man of rank in 827 and 826 respectively. In 851 they retired to a monastery on Mt. Olympus to live a secluded life of self-discipline. However, in 858 they were sought out and commissioned to instruct the Hunnish Khazars in the Christian faith. After completing this task they retired to the Crimea to make a Slavonic translation of the Bible. There they discovered the relics of Pope Saint Clement I.

In 862 the emperor Michael sent the brothers to minister to the people of Pannonia, Rostislav, Svaetopolk and Kotel. On their way Methodius converted King Boris of the Bulgarians before proceeding to Moravia where they continued to work on their translation of the Bible for several years. In 868 Pope Nicolas I summoned them to Rome after German princes complained of their use of the Slavonic language in the liturgy. They were received by his successor Pope Adrian II who sanctioned the use of the Slavonic liturgy and ordained two of their disciples as bishops.

In the following year Cyril died in Rome on 14 February and Methodius returned to Moravia until, in 878, when Pope John VIII forbade the use of Salvonic in the liturgy and summoned Methodius to Rome. After his appearance the Pope was satisfied of Methodius' orthodoxy and confirmed his position and authority over the Moravian Church. Methodius converted Duke Borivoi of Bohemia and introduced Christianity into the lands under his rule. In Prague he founded a church dedicated to Our Lady, and another dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul. He died on 6 April 885.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Twin stars this day arise on the heavens of holy Church, illumining by the radiant beams of their apostolate immense tracts of country. Seeing that they start from Byzantium, one is at first led to suppose that their evolution is going to be performed independently of the laws which Rome has the right to dictate for the movements of the heavens, of which it is said that “they will declare the glory of God and the works of His hand” (Psalm xviii. 2). But the auspicious influence of Saint Clement I, as we will see, through his sacred relics diverts their course towards the Mistress of the world. And presently they can be descried gravitating with matchless splendour in Peter’s orbit, manifesting once more to the whole Earth that all true light in the order of salvation radiates solely from the Vicar of the Man-God. Then once again is realised that word of the Psalmist, that “there are no speeches nor languages where the voices of the messengers of light are not heard” (Psalm xviii. 4).

To the sudden and splendid outburst of the good tidings that marked the first centuries of our era, had succeeded the labours of the second Apostolate where to the Holy Ghost entrusted the gathering in of those new nations called by Divine Wisdom to replace the ancient world. Already, under that mysterious influence of the Eternal City by which she assimilated to herself even her very conquerors, another Latin race had been formed out of those very barbarians whose invasion seemed like a deluge to have submerged the whole Empire. Scarce was this marvellous transformation effected by the baptism of the Franks, the conversion from Arianism of the Goths and of their variously named brethren in arms, than the Anglo Saxons, the Germans, and lastly the Scandinavians, conducted respectively by an Augustine, a Boniface, or an Anscharius, all three monks, came in turn to knock for admission, at the gates of Holy Church. At the creative voice of these new Apostles, Europe appeared, issuing from the waters of the sacred Font.

Meanwhile, the constant movement of the great migration of nations had, by degrees, brought as far as the banks of the Danube, a people whose name began, in the ninth century, to attract universal attention. Betwixt East and West, the Slavs, profiting on the one side of the weakness of Charlemagne’s descendants, and of the revolutions of the Byzantine court on the other, were aiming at erecting their various tribes into principalities, independent alike of both empires. Thus was now the hour chosen by Providence to win over to Christianity and to civilisation a race until then without a history. The Spirit of Pentecost rested on the head of the two holy brethren whom we are today celebrating. Prepared by the monastic life for every devotedness and every suffering, they brought to this people struggling to issue from the shades of ignorance, the first elements of letters, and tidings of the noble destiny to which God, our Saviour, invites men and nations.

Thus was the Slav race fitted to complete the great European family, and God ceded to it a larger territory than He had bestowed on any other in this Europe of ours, so evidently the object of Eternal Predilection. Happy this nation had she but continued ever attached to that Rome which had lent her such valuable assistance in the midst of the early struggles that disputed her existence! Nothing, indeed, so strongly seconded her aspirations for independence as the favour of having a peculiar language in the sacred rites, a favour obtained for her from the See of Peter by her two Apostles. The outcries uttered, at that very time, by those who would fain hold her fast bound under their own laws, showed clearly enough, even then, the political bearing of a concession, as unparalleled as it was decisive, in sealing the existence in those regions of a new people distinct at once from both Germans and Greeks.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYOLOGY:

At Rome, the holy martyrs Claudius, notary, Meostratus, assistant prefect, Castorius, Victorinus and Symphorian, who were brought to the faith of Christ by St. Sebastian, and baptised by the blessed priest Polycarp. While they were engaged in searching for the bodies of the holy martyrs, the judge Fabian had them arrested, and for ten days he tried by threats and caresses to shake their constancy, but being utterly unable to succeed, he ordered them to be thrice tortured and then precipitated into the sea.

At Durazzo in Macedonia, the holy martyrs Peregrinus, Lucian, Pompeius, Hesychius, Papius, Saturninus and Germanus, natives of Italy. In the persecution of Trajan they took refuge in the town of Durazzo, where seeing the saintly bishop Astius hanging on a cross for the faith of Christ, they publicly declared themselves to be Christians, when, by order of the governor, they were arrested and cast into the sea.

At Perugia, blessed Pope Benedict XI, a native of Treviso, of the Order of Preachers, who in the brief space of his pontificate greatly promoted the peace of the Church, the restoration of discipline and the spread of religion.

At Alexandria, the birthday of St. Pantaenus, an apostolic man, filled with wisdom. He had such an affection and love for the word of God, and was so inflamed with the ardour of faith and devotion, that he set out to preach the Gospel of Christ to the Gentiles inhabiting the farthest recesses of the East. At length returning to Alexandria, he rested in peace under Antoninus Caracalla.

At Brescia, St. Apollonius, bishop and confessor.

In Saxony, St. Willibald, first bishop of Eichstadt, who laboured with St. Boniface in preaching the Gospel and converted many nations to Christ.

At Clermont in Auvergne, St. Illidius, bishop.

At Urgel in Spain, St. Odo, bishop.

In England, St. Hedda, bishop of the West-Saxons.

At Gray in Burgundy, blessed Peter Fourier, Canon Regular of the most Holy Saviour, renowned for virtues and miracles.

In England, St. Edelburga, virgin, daughter of an English king.

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

Thanks be to God.

6 JULY – SAINT MARIA GORETTI (Virgin and Martyr)

Maria Teresa Goretti was born in northern Italy in 1890, the third of six children of Luigi Goretti and Assunta Carlini. After her father died in 1899, her mother and siblings worked as farm labourers while she kept house. They they moved to Lazio and shared a farmhouse with another family of farm labourers. On July 5th 1902 a young farmhand called Alessandro tried to rape Maria. She pleaded with him to stop, telling him that it was a sin and she would rather die than submit to him. Alessandro then tried to choke her and stabbed her many times. Her family took her to hospital but twenty hours later she died of her injuries while gazing at an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary and holding a cross against her chest. Alessandro escaped the death penalty because of his age and served 30 years in prison. After his release he begged Maria's mother’s forgiveness. She forgave him and they attended Mass together the next day, receiving Holy Communion side-by-side. Alessandro reportedly prayed every day to Maria Goretti and called her “my little saint.” Maria Goretti was canonised by Venerable Pope Pius XII in 1950. Alessandro became a lay-brother of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin until his death in 1970.

Saint Maria Goretti, who strengthened by God's grace did not hesitate even at the age of twelve to shed your blood and sacrifice life itself to defend your virginal purity, look graciously on the unhappy human race which has strayed far from the path of eternal salvation. Teach us all, and especially youth, with what courage and promptitude we should flee for the love of Jesus anything that could offend Him or stain our souls with sin. Obtain for us from our Lord victory in temptation, comfort in the sorrows of life, and the grace which we earnestly beg of you (here insert intention), and may we one day enjoy with you the imperishable glory of Heaven. Amen.

On this day according to the ROMAN MARTYOLOGY:

In Judea, the holy prophet Isaiah. In the reign of king Manasses he was put to death by being sawed in two and was buried beneath the oak Rogel, near a running stream.

At Rome, the birthday of St. Tranquillinus, martyr, father of the Saints Mark and Marcellian, who were converted to Christ by the preaching of the martyr St. Sebastian. Baptised by the blessed priest Polycarp, he was ordained priest by Pope St. Caius. He was arrested while praying at the tomb of the blessed Apostle St. Paul on the Octave of the Apostles and stoned to death by the pagans, and thus consummated his martyrdom.

At Fiesoli in Tuscany, St. Romulus, bishop and martyr, a disciple of the blessed Apostle St. Peter, who commissioned him to preach the Gospel. After announcing Christ in many parts of Italy, he returned to Fiesoli and was crowned with martyrdom with other Christians in the reign of Domitian.

In Campania, St. Dominica, virgin and martyr, in the time of the emperor Diocletian. For having destroyed idols, she was condemned to the beasts, but being uninjured by them, she was beheaded and departed for heaven. Her body is kept with great veneration at Tropea in Calabria.

The same day, St. Lucia, martyr, a native of Campania. Being arrested and severely tortured by the lieutenant-governor Rictiovarus, she converted him to Christ. To them were added Antoninus, Severinus, Diodorus, Dion and seventeen others who shared their sufferings and their crowns.

In the vicinity of Treves, St. Goar, priest and confessor.

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

Thanks be to God.

6 JULY – FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

 

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

The fourth Sunday after Pentecost was called for a long period in the West the Sunday of Mercy because, formerly, there was read upon it the passage from Saint Luke beginning with the words: “Be merciful, as your Father is merciful.” But this Gospel having been since assigned to the Mass of the first Sunday after Pentecost, the Gospel of the fifth Sunday was made that of the fourth, the Gospel of the sixth became that of the fifth, and so on up to the twenty-third. The change we speak of was, however, not introduced into many Churches till a very late period, and it was not universally received till the sixteenth century.

While the Gospels were thus brought forward a week — in almost the whole series of these Sundays, the Epistles, Prayers and the other sung portions of the ancient Masses were, with a few exceptions, left as originally drawn up. The connection which the liturgists of the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries had fancied they found between the Gospel and the rest of the Liturgy for these Sundays was broken. Thus the Church spared not those favourite views of explanations which were at times far-fetched, and yet she did not intend by that to condemn those writers, nor to discourage her children from perusing their treatises, for, as the holy reflections they contained were frequently suggested by the authority of the ancient Liturgies, such reading would edify and instruct. e are quite at liberty, then, to turn their labours to profit. Let us only keep this continually before us — that the chief connection existing between the several portions of the proper of each Mass for the Sundays after Pentecost consists in the unity of the Sacrifice itself.

In the Greek Church, there is even less pretension to anything approaching methodical arrangement in the Liturgy of these Sundays. On the morrow of Pentecost they begin the reading of the Gospel of Saint Matthew and continue it, chapter after chapter, up to the feast of the Exaltation of the holy Cross in September. Saint Luke follows Saint Matthew, and is read in the same way. The weeks and Sundays of this Season are simply named according to the Gospel of each day, or they take the name of the Evangelist whose text is being read: thus, our first Sunday after Pentecost is called by them the first Sunday of Saint Matthew. The one we are now keeping is their fourth of Saint Matthew.

In a former volume we have spoken of the importance of the eighth day as the Christian substitute for the seventh of the Jewish Sabbath, and as the holy day of the new people of God. The Synagogue, by God’s command, kept holy the Saturday, or the Sabbath —and this in honour of God’s resting after the six days of the creation. But the Church, the Bride of Jesus, is commanded to honour the work of her Spouse. She allows the Saturday to pass — it is the day of her Lord’s rest in the sepulchre: but now that she is illumined with the brightness of the Resurrection, she devotes to the contemplation of His work the first day of the week, the Sunday: it is the day of Light, for on it He called forth material Light (which was the first manifestation of order amid chaos) and, on the same day, He that is the Brightness of the Father (Hebrews i. 3) and the Light of the world (John viii. 12) rose from the darkness of the tomb.

So important, indeed, is the Sunday’s liturgy which every week is entrusted to honour such profound mysteries, that for a long time the Roman Pontiffs kept down the number of Feasts which were above the rank of semi-doubles, that thus the Sunday, which is a semi-double, might not be disturbed. It was not till the second half of the seventeenth century that this discipline of reserve was relaxed. Then it was that it had to give way in order thereby to meet the attacks made by the Protestants and their allies the Jansenists, against the cult of the Saints. Need was of reminding the Faithful that the honour paid to the servants of God detracts not from the glory of their Master, that the cult of the Saints, the Members of Christ, is but the consequence and development of that which is due to Christ their Head. The Church owed it to her Spouse to make a protest against the narrow views of these innovators who were really aiming at lessening the glory of the Incarnation by thus denying its grandest consequences. It was, therefore, by a special inspiration of the Holy Spirit that the Apostolic See then permitted several feasts, both old and new, to be ranked as of a double rite. To strengthen the solemn condemnation she had pronounced against the heretics of that period, she wisely adopted the course of, from time to time, allowing the Feasts of Saints to be kept on Sundays, although these latter were considered as being especially reserved for the celebration of the leading mysteries of our Catholic faith, and for the obligatory attendance of the people.

The Sunday, or Dominical, Liturgy was not, however, altogether displaced by the celebration of any particular feast on the Lord’s Day. For no matter however solemn that feast, falling on a Sunday, may be, a commemoration must always he made of the Sunday by adding its Prayers to those of the occurring Feast, and by reading its proper Gospel, instead of that of Saint John at the end of Mass. Neither let us forget that after the assisting at the solemn Mass and the Canonical Hours, one of the best means for observing the precept of keeping holy the Sabbath day is our own private meditation on the Epistle and Gospel appointed by the Church for each Sunday.

Epistle – Romans viii. 18‒23

Brethren, the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared to the glory to come that will be revealed in us. For the expectation of the creature waits for the revelation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him that made it subject, in hope: because the creature also itself will be delivered from the servitude of corruption, to the liberty of the glory of the children of God. For we know that every creature groans and travails in pain even till now. And not only it, but ourselves also, who have the first, fruits of the spirit, even we ourselves, groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption of the sons of God; the redemption of our body.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

The first fruits of the Spirit are the grace and virtues which He has put into our souls as the earnest of salvation and the germ of future glory. Our faith confirms our possession of these divine pledges and regenerate human nature, even amid all the trials of this life, is consoled at the very thought of the noble destiny to which it is called. Satan may use his fiercest efforts to regain his lost ground, and the soul may have many and frequent battles to fight for the holding what was once under the dominion of the enemy, but Christian hope is an armour of Heaven’s own making. Hope enters in even within the veil (Hebrews vi. 19), and then she comes telling the combatant about the disproportion here mentioned by the Apostle between the fatigues of the march here below, and the bliss which is to reward our fidelity in the happy land above. He has the promises of God, and the marvellous dealings of the Paraclete in his regard, both in the past and now — all justifying his expectations of the future glory that will then be revealed, be realised, in him. The very Earth he dwells on, which now so often tyrannises over him and deceives his senses — yes, this very Earth urges him to fix his heart on something far better than herself. She even seems to share in his hopes. Saint Paul tells us so in today’s Epistle: the wild upheavings, the restless changes of material creation, are so many voices clamouring for the destruction of sin, and for the final and total triumph over the corruption which followed sin.

The present condition of this world, therefore, furnishes a special and most telling motive inviting us to the holy virtue of hope. Only they can find anything strange in such teaching who have no idea of how man’s being raised up to the supernatural order was, from the beginning, a real ennobling of the world which was made for man’s service. Men of this stamp have each their own way of explaining God’s creation, but the truth which explains everything both on Earth and in Heaven — the divine axiom which is the principle and reason of everything that has been made — is this: that God, who, of necessity, does everything for His own glory, has, of His own free choice, appointed that the perfection of this His glory will consist in the triumph of His love by the ineffable mystery of divine union realised in His creature. To bring this divine union about is, consequently, by God’s gracious will, not only the one sole end, but, moreover, is the one only law, the vital and constitutive law, of creation.

When the Spirit moved over chaos He adapted the informal matter to the designs of infinite love. Thereby the various elements, and the countless atoms, of the world that was in preparation, really derived from this infinite love the principle of their future development and power. They received it as their one single mission to co-operate, each in its own way, with the Holy Spirit: that is, co-operate in leading man, the creature chosen by Eternal Wisdom, to the proposed glorious end — union with God. Sin broke the alliance and would have destroyed the world from the very fact of sin’s taking from it the purpose of its existence, had it not been for the incomprehensible patience of the God it outraged, and the marvellous renovations of the original plan achieved by the Spirit of love. A violent state, the state of struggle and expiation has now been substituted for what, in the primal design of the Creator, was to be the effortless advance of the king of creation to His grand destiny, the spontaneous growth of, what some one has called man, the god in the bud. Divine union is still offered to the world but, at what a cost of trouble and travail!

We may still enjoy the eternal music of triumph and all the joys of the divine nuptial banquet but what a long prelude of sighs and sobs must precede! Men, who recognise no other law than that of the flesh, may be as deaf and as indifferent as they please to the teachings of positive revelation, but mere matter will go on ever condemning their materialism. Nature, which they pretend to acknowledge as their only authority, will continue to preach the supernatural with her thousand mouths, and will preach it in every nook of the earth. And creation, disturbed though it be, and turned astray by the Fall of Adam, will still keep proclaiming all the louder because it is in suffering — that the fallen king whom it was intended to serve has a destiny far beyond all finite things. You mysterious sufferings of creatures, which the Apostle here calls your groanings, may we not name you, as one of the poets (Aeneas) did, and speak of you as the tears of things? Truly, you are like the soul of music of this land of trial. We have but to listen to your sweet plaintive sounds, and let you speak your eloquence, and you lead us to Him who is the source of all beauty and love. The pagan world heard your voice, but its philosophers would have it that you meant pantheism! The Holy Ghost had not yet begun His reign. He alone could explain to us the strange language of nature, and her vehement aspirations, all of which had been put into her by Himself. All is now made clear to us: the Spirit of the Lord has filled the whole earth (Wisdom i. 7), the divine Witness who giveth us assurance that we are the sons of God (Romans vii. 16) has carried His precious testimony to the furthest limits of creation, for all creation thrills with expectancy, impatient to see the coming of that glorious day which is to be the revelation of the glory that belongs to these sons of God. It is on their account that they too have had to suffer. Together with them they will be set free, and will share in the brightness of their coronation day. Saint John Chrysostom compares the Earth to “the nurse who has brought up the king’s son. When he succeeds to his father’s kingdom, she too is made all the better off... It is much the same with all men: when a son of theirs is to appear in the splendour of some new dignity, they let his very servants wear richer suits. So will God vest in incorruption every creature when the day of the deliverance and glory of His children will come.”

Gospel – Luke v. 1‒11

At that time, when the crowd pressed upon Jesus to hear the word of God, He stood by the Lake of Genesareth. And He saw two ships standing by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets; and going up into one of the ships that was Simon’s, He desired him to draw back a little from the land: and sitting, He taught the multitudes out of the ship. Now when He had ceased to speak, He said to Simon, “Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught.” And Simon, answering, said to Him, “Master, we have laboured all night and have taken nothing, but at your word I will let down the net.” And when they had done this they enclosed a very great multitude of fishes and their net broke, and they beckoned to their partners that were in the other ship to come and help them; and they came and filled both the ships, so that they were almost sinking. Which, when Simon Peter saw, he fell down at Jesus’s knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” For he was wholly astonished, and all who were with him, at the draught of fishes they had taken; and so were also James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were Simon’s partners. And Jesus said to Simon, “Fear not: from now on you will catch men.” And having brought their ships to land, leaving all things, they followed Him.

Praise be to you, O Christ.

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

The prophecy and promise made by Jesus to Simon the son of John is now fulfilled. We were in amazement on the day when the Holy Ghost came down at the success which attended Peter’s first fishing for men. He cast in his nets, and it was the choicest of the sons of Israel that he took and offered them to the Lord Jesus. But the barque of Peter was not to be long confined within Jewish waters. Insignificant as it seems to human views, the ship is now sailing on the high seas. It rides on the deep waters, which are, so Saint John tells us, peoples and nations (Apocalypse xvii. 15). The boisterous wind, the surging billows, the storm, no longer terrifies the boat-man of Lake Tiberias, for he knows that he has on board Him who is the Master of the waves, Him, that is, who has given the deep as a garment to clothe the earth (Psalms ciii. 6). Endued with power from on high (Luke xxiv. 49), Peter has cast his net, the apostolic preaching, all over the great ocean: for it is large as is the world, and is to bring the sons of the great fish the divine ICTHUS to the eternal shore. Grand indeed is the work assigned to Peter. Though fellow-labourers have been joined to him in his divine enterprise, yet does he preside over them all as their undisputed head, as master of the ship where Jesus commands in person and directs all the operations to be done for the world’s salvation. Today’s Gospel very opportunely prepares us for and sums up the teachings included in the Feast of the Prince of the Apostles, which always comes close on the fourth Sunday after Pentecost. For that very reason, we leave for the Feast the detailed enumeration of the glories inherent in the Vicar of Christ and limit ourselves, for the present, to the consideration of the other mysteries contained in the text before us.

The Evangelists have left us the account of two miraculous fishings made by the Apostles in presence of their divine Lord: one of these is related by Saint Luke, and the Church proposes it to our considerations for this Sunday. The other, with its exquisite symbolism, was put before us by the Beloved Disciple on Easter Wednesday. The former of these, which took place while our Lord was still in the days of His mortal life, merely describes that the net was cast into the water just as it served the fishermen’s purpose. That it broke with the multitude of the draught, but no notice is taken, by the Evangelist, as to either the number or kind of the fish. in the second it is our Risen Lord who tells the fishermen, His disciples, that it is to be on the right side of their boat that the net must be let down. It catches, and without breaking, a hundred-and-fifty great fishes. These are brought to the shore where Jesus was waiting for them that He might join them with the mysterious bread and fish that He Himself had already got ready for His labourers (John xxi. 1-13).

The Fathers are unanimous in the interpretation of these two fishings — they represent the Church, first of all, the Church as she now is, and next, as she is to be in eternity. As she now is, the Church is the multitude without distinction between good and bad. But afterwards, that is, after the Resurrection, the good alone will compose the Church, and their number will be forever fixed. “The kingdom of Heaven,” says our Lord, “is like a net cast into the sea, and gathering together of all kind of fishes; which, when it was filled, they drew out, they chose out the good into vessels, but the bad they cast forth” (Matthew xiii. 47, 48).

To speak with Saint Augustine, the fishers of men have cast forth their nets. They have taken the multitude of Christians which we see in wonderment. They have filled the two ships with them, the two peoples, Jew and Gentile. But what is this we are told? The multitude weighs down the ships, even to the risk of sinking them. It is what we witness now, the pressing and mingled crowd of the Baptised is a burden to the Church. Many Christians there are who live badly: they are a trouble to, and keep back, the good. Worse than these, there are those who tear the nets by their schisms or their heresies: they are fish which are impatient of the yoke of unity and will not come to the banquet of Christ. They are pleased with themselves. Under pretext that they cannot live with the bad, they break the net which kept them in the apostolic track and they die far off the shore. In how many countries have they not thus broken the great net of salvation? The Donatists in Africa, the Arians in Egypt, Montanus in Phrygia, Manes in Persia. And since their times, how many others have excelled in the work of rupture! Let us not imitate their folly. If grace have made us holy, let us be patient with the bad while living in this world’s waters. Let the sight of them drive us neither to live as they do, nor to leave the Church. The shore is not far off, where those on the right, or the good, will alone be permitted to land, and from which the wicked will be repulsed, and cast into the abyss.

On this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Besançon in France, the holy martyrs Ferreol, priest, and Ferrution, deacon, who were sent by the blessed bishop Irenaeus to preach the word of God, and after being exposed to various torments under the judge Claudius, were put to the sword.

At Tarsus in Cilicia, in the reign of the emperor Diocletian, the holy martyrs Quiricus, and Julitta, his mother. Quiricus, a child of three years, seeing his mother cruelly scourged in the presence of the governor Alexander, and crying bitterly, was killed by being dashed against the steps of the tribunal. Julitta, after being subjected to severe stripes and grievous torments, closed the career of her martyrdom by decapitation.

At Mayence, the passion of the Saints Aurens, and Justina, his sister, and other martyrs, who, being at Mass in church, were massacred by the Huns then devastating Germany.

At Amathonte in Cyprus, St. Tychon, a bishop in the time of Theodosius the Younger.

At Lyons, the demise of blessed Aurelian, bishop of Arles.

At Nantes in Brittany, St. Similian, bishop and confessor.

At Meissen in Germany, St. Benno, bishop.

In the village of La Louvesc, formerly of the diocese of Vienne in Dauphiny, the decease of St. John Francis Regis, confessor, of the Society of Jesus, distinguished by his zeal for the salvation of souls, and by his patience. He was placed on the list of saints by Pope Clement XII.

In Brabant, St. Lutgard, virgin.

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

Thanks be to God.