19 JUNE – SAINT JULIANA FALCONIERI (Virgin)

Juliana of the noble family of Falconieri was the daughter of the illustrious nobles Chiarissimo and Reguardata Falconieri who founded and built the Church of Our Lady of the Annunciation, still to be seen in Florence. When she was born in 1270 both were already advanced in years and up to this, quite childless. From her very cradle, she gave tokens of the holiness of life to which she afterwards attained. And from the lisping of her baby lips was caught the sweet sound of the names of Jesus and Mary. As she entered on her girlhood, she delivered herself up entirely to the pursuit of Christian virtues, and so excellently shone therein that her uncle, the blessed Alexius, scrupled not to tell her mother that she had given birth to an Angel rather than to a woman. So modest, indeed, was her countenance, and so pure her soul from the slightest speck of indiscretion, that she never in her whole life raised her eyes to a man’s face, and that the very mention of sin made her shiver; and when the story of a grievous crime was told her, she dropped down fainting and almost lifeless.

Before she had completed her fifteenth year, she renounced her inheritance, although a richone, and all prospect of earthly marriage, solemnly making to God a vow of virginity, in the hands of St.Philip Benizi, from whom .she was the first to receive the religious habit of what are called the “Mantellatoo”. Juliana’s example was followed by many young women of noble families, and even her own mother put herself under her daughter's instructions. Thus in a little while, their number increased, and she became foundress of the Order of the Mantellatffi, to whom she gave a rule of life, full of wisdom and holiness. St. Philip Benizi having thorough knowledge of her virtues, being at the point of death, thought that to none better than to her, could he leave the care not only of the women but of the whole Order of Servites, of which he was the propagator and head; yet of herself she ever deemed most lowly; even when she was the mistress of others, ministering to her sisters in the meanest offices of the household work. She passed whole days in incessant prayer, and was often rapt in spirit; and the remainder of her time, she toiled to make peace among the citizens, who were at variance amongst themselves; to recall sinners from evil courses; and to nurse the sick, to cure whom she would sometimes use even her tongue to remove the matter that ran from their sores, and so healed them. It was her custom to afflict her body with whips, knotted cords, iron girdles, watching, and sleeping upon the bare ground. Upon four days in the week, she ate very sparingly, and that only of the coarsest food; on the other two she contented herself with the Bread of Angels alone, except Saturday whereon she took only bread and water.

This hardship of life caused her to fall ill of a stomach complaint, which increasing,brought her to the point of death, when she was seventy years of age. She bore the daily sufferings of this long illness with a smiling face and a brave heart; the only thing of which she was heard to complain being, that her stomach was so weak, that unable to retain food, she was withheld, by reverence for the holy Sacrament, from the Eucharistic Table. Finding herself in these straits she begged the Priest to bring her the Divine Bread, and as she dared not take It into her mouth, to put It as near as possible to her heart exteriorly. The Priest did as she wished, and to the amazement of all present, the Divine Bread at once disappeared from sight, and at the same instant, a smile of joyous peace crossed the face of Juliana, and she gave up the ghost. This matter seemed beyond all belief, until the virginal body was being laid out in the accustomed manner; for then there was found, upon the left side of the bosom, a mark like the stamp of a seal, reproducing the form of the Sacred Host, the mould of which was one of those that bear a figure of Christ crucified. The report of this and of other wonders procured for Juliana a reverence not only from Florence, but from all parts of the Christian world, which reverence so increased through the course of four hundred years, that Pope Benedict XIII commanded a proper Office in her honour to be celebrated by the whole Order of Servites of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and Clement XII. the munificent Protector of the same Order, finding new signs and wonders shedding lustre upon her glory every day, inscribed the name of Juliana upon the catalogue of holy virgins in 1737.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

This day witnesses the close of the pilgrimage of one, who was miraculously supplied with the divine Viaticum: Juliana presents herself at heaven’s gate, showing upon her heart, the impress of the Sacred Host. The lily emblazoned on the city escutcheon of Florence, glistens with fresh radiance today, for it was she gave birth to our Saint, as well as to so many others, some of whom have already beamed across our path, and some are about to follow,—all of them brilliant in sublime virtues practised within the ancient walls of this “City of flowers”, under the delighted glance and the urging influence of the Spirit of Love. But what shall we say of the glory of yonder mountains, that nobly crown this fair city, —a diadem lovely in men’s eyes and still more so, to Angels’ gaze? What, of Vallombrosa, and further in the blue distance, of Camaldoli, of Alberno? —all sacred fortresses, at whose foot hell trembling howls—all sacred reservoirs of choicest grace, guarded by Seraphim, whence flow in gushing streams more abundant and more pure than Arno’s tide, living waters of salvation on all the smiling land around! In 1233, just thirty seven years previous to Juliana’s birth, Florence seemed destined to be, under the holy influence of such a neighbourhood, a very paradise of sanctity; so common did the higher Christian life become—of such everyday occurrence were supernatural prodigies. The Mother of Divine Grace was then multiplying her gifts. Once on a certain festival of the Assumption, seven of the citizens the most distinguished for nobility of blood, fortune, and public offices of trust, were suddenly inflamed by a heavenly desire to consecrate themselves unreservedly to the service of Our Lady. Presently, as these men passed along, bidding adieu to the world, babes at the breast cried out, all over the city: “Behold the Servants of the Virgin Mary!” Among the innocents whose tongue was thus unloosed to announce divine mysteries, was the new-born son of the illustrious family of Benizii, he was named Philip and had first seen the light on the very feast of the Assumption, whereon Mary had just founded for her glory and that of her Divine Son, the Order of the Servites. We shall have to return to this child, who was to be the chief propagator of the new order; for holy Church celebrates his birthday into heaven, on the morrow of the Octave of the Assumption. He was destined to be Juliana’s spiritual father. In the meanwhile, the Seven invited by Mary to the festival of penitence, who all persevering faithful unto death, are inscribed on the catalogue of the Saints—had retired three leagues from Florence to the desert of Monte Senario. There Our Lady, during seven years, formed them to the great work, of which they were the predestined though unwitting instruments.

According to His wont, the Holy Ghost, during all this preparatory season, though of long duration, —kept from them every idea save that of their own santification, employing them in the mortification of the senses, and in a spirit of exclusive contemplation of the sufferings of Our Lord and those of His divine Mother. Two amongst them, daily came down to the city to beg bread for themselves and their companions. One of these illustrious mendicants was Alexius Falconieri, the most eager for humiliations, amongst all the seven. His brother who, still continuing in the world, held one of the highest positions amongst the citizens, was in every way worthy of this blessed man, and paid homage to his heroic self-abasement. He likewise took an honourable share in the united gift bestowed, with the concurrence of all classes of these religious citizens, upon the solitaries of Monte Senario, whereby a magnificent Church was added to the poor retreat, they had been induced to accept, for greater convenience, at the gates of Florence. To honour the mystery wherein their Sovereign Lady declared herself to be the humble servant of the Lord,—this church and monastery of the Servites of Mary received the title of the “Annunziata.” Among the marvels which wealth and art, in succeeding ages, have lavished upon its interior, the principal treasure which puts all the rest in the shade, is a primitive fresco of the angelical salutation, dating from the lifetime of the founders—the painter whereof, more devout to Mary, than skilful with his pencil, deserved to be aided by the hands of Angels. Signal favours obtained without interruption, from this sacred picture, still attract flocks of devout visitors. If the city of the Medici and of the Tuscan Grand Dukes, though swallowed up by the universal brigandage of the house of Savoy, has preserved better than many others, the lively piety of better days—she owes it to this her ancient Madonna, as well as to her numerous saints, who seem gathered within her walls, to serve as a cortege of honour for Our Lady.

These details seem necessary to throw light on the abridged account given in the Liturgy, regarding our Saint. Juliana, born of a sterile mother and of a father advanced in years, was the reward of the zeal displayed for the Annunziata, by her father, Carissimo Falconieri. Beside this picture of the Madonna was she to spend her life and to yield up her last breath; close by, her sacred relics now repose. Educated by her uncle, Saint Alexius, in the love of Mary and of humility, she devoted herself from her very youth to the Order founded by Our Lady; ambitioning no title save one, that of Oblate, which would entail upon her the serving, in the lowest rank, the Servites of God’s Mother: for this reason, she was later on, acknowledged to be the foundress of the Third Order of the Servites, and was Superioress of the first community of these female tertiaries, surnamed “Mantellatae.” But her influence extended further still, so that the whole Order, both the men and the women, alike hail her as their Mother; for it was indeed she who put the finishing stroke to the work of its foundation, and gave it the stability it has been possessed of for centuries.

The Order which had become marvellously extended during forty years of miraculous existence and under the government of Saint Philip Benizi, was at that moment passing through a dangerous crisis, the more to be feared because the storm had taken rise in Rome itself. There was question of everywhere carrying into effect, the canons of. The Councils of Lateran and Lyons, prohibiting the introduction of new Orders into the Church; now,. the institute of the Servites being posterior to the first of these Councils, Innocent V was resolved on its suppression. The superiors had already been forbidden to receive any novice to Profession or to Clothing; and whilst awaiting the definitive sentence, the goods of the Order were considered, beforehand, as already devolved on the Holy See. Philip Benizi was about to die, and Juliana was but fifteen years of age. Nevertheless, enlightened from on high, the Saint hesitated not: he confided the Order to Juliana’s hands, and so slept in the peace of our Lord. The event justified his hopes: after various catastrophes which it were long to relate, Benedict XI, in 1304, gave to the Servites the definitive sanction of the Church. So true is it, that in the Counsels of Divine Providence, nor rank, nor age, nor sex, count for aught! The simplicity of a soul that has wounded the Heart of the Spouse, is stronger in her humble submission, than highest authority; and her unknown prayer prevails over powers established by God Himself.

* * * * *

To serve Mary, was the only nobility that had any attraction in your eyes, Juliana! to share her Dolours, was the only recompense which your generous soul in its lowliness, could ambition. Your desires were granted: but from that lofty Throne where She reigns as Queen of Angels and of men, She who confessed Herself the Handmaid of the Lord and beheld God to have regard to her humility—was also pleased to exalt you, like herself, above all the mighty ones. Counteracting that hidden silence wherein you would fain have had the human brilliancy of your pedigree forgotten and lost for ever —she has made your holy glory eclipse the fair honour of your sires, in Florence; so that if the name of Falconieri has now a world-wide fame, it is on your account, humble Tertiary, lowly Servant of the Servites of Our Lady! Further still: in that fair Home of true Nobility, in yonder City of God, where ranks are distinguished by the varying degree of radiance shed by the Lamb on the brow of each one of the Elect—you shine resplendent with an aureola, which is nothing less than a participation of Mary’s glory. Just as she acted in regard of Holy Church, after the Ascension of our Lord, so did you in respect of the Servite Order; for while leaving to others, such action as appears externally, and such authority as must rule souls—you were nonetheless, in your lowliness, the real mistress and mother of the new Family, formed of the men and the women chosen by God for that Order. More than once, in other centuries likewise, has the divine Mother been pleased thus to glorify her faithful imitatrices, by making them become, beyond all calculation of their own, faithful copies of herself. Just, as in the family confided to Peter by her Divine Son, Our Lady was the most submissive of all others to the rule of Christ’s Vicar and that of the other Apostles; whereas all knew right well that she was their Queen, and the very fountain-head of the graces of consolidation and growth, that were inundating the Church—so, Juliana, the weakness of your sex and age in no way restrained a strong religious Order, from proclaiming you its light and its glory. This was because the Most High, ever liberal in His gifts, was pleased to grant to your youthfulness, results which He refused to the greater maturity, to the genius—yes, to the sanctity of your Father, Saint Philip Benizi!

Continue, then, to shield your devout family of Servites of Mary: stretch forth your protecting mantle over every religious Order severely tried in these our days. May Florence, through your aid, ever hold in most precious remembrance the favours lavished on her by Our Lady and the Saints, because of her Faith, in the good days of old. May Holy Church ever have more and more cause to sing your power, as a Bride, over the Heart of the Divine Spouse. In return for the signal grace He bestowed on you, as the crown of your life, and the consummation of His Love in you, be propitious to us in our last struggle: obtain for us that we may not die unhelped by the reception of the holy Viaticum. The whole of this portion of the Cycle is illumined with the rays of the adorable Host, proposed to our prostrate worship in so special a manner, at this season, by another Juliana: Oh may that sweet Host be the one Love of our life’s career; may It be our strong bulwark in life’s final combat! Yes, may our death be nothing else than a passing from the divine Banquet of Earth’s land of shadows, up to the delicious Festal Board of Eternal Union.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Milan, the holy martyrs Gervasius and Protasius, brothers. The former, by order of the judge Astasius, was so long scourged with leaded whips, that he expired. The latter, after being scourged with rods, was beheaded. Through divine revelation their bodies were found by St. Ambrose. They were partly covered with blood, and as free from corruption as if they had been put to death that very day. When the translation took place, a blind man recovered his sight by touching their relics and many persons possessed by demons were delivered.

At Ravenna, St. Ursicinus, martyr, who remained firm through many torments in the confession of the Lord, and consummated his martyrdom by capital punishment under the judge Paulinus.

At Sozopolis, under the governor Domitian, during the persecution of Trajan, St. Zosimus, martyr, who suffered bitter tortures, was beheaded and thus triumphantly went to heaven.

At Arezzo in Tuscany, the holy martyrs Gaudentius, bishop, and Culmatius, deacon, who were murdered by furious Gentiles during the reign of Valentinian.

The same day, St. Boniface, martyr, a disciple of blessed Romuald, who was sent by the Roman Pontiff to preach the Gospel in Russia. Having passed through fire uninjured, and baptised the king and his people, he was killed by the enraged brother of the king and thus gained the palm of martyrdom which he ardently desired.

At Ravenna, St. Romuald, anchoret, founder of the monks of Carnaldoli, who restored and greatly extended monastic discipline which was much relaxed in Italy. He is also mentioned on the seventh of February.

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

Thanks be to God.

19 JUNE – SOLEMNITY OF CORPUS CHRISTI

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

A great solemnity has this day risen upon our Earth: a Feast both to God and men, for it is the Feast of Christ the Mediator who is present in the sacred Host that God may be given to man, and man to God. Divine union — yes, such is the dignity to which man is permitted to aspire, and to this aspiration, God has responded, even here below, by an invention which is all of Heaven.

It is today that man celebrates this marvel of God’s goodness. And yet, against both the Feast and its divine object there has been made the old fashioned objection: “How can these things be done?” (John iii. 9; vi. 53). It really does seem as though reason has a right to find fault with what looks like senseless pretensions of man’s heart. Every living being thirsts after happiness, and yet and because of that it only aspires after the good of which it is capable, for it is the necessary condition of happiness that in order to its existence there must be the full contentment of the creature’s desire. Hence, in that great act of creation which the Scripture so sublimely calls “His playing in the world” (Proverbs viii. 30, 31), when with His almighty power, He prepared the heavens and enclosed the depths, and balanced the foundations of the earth (Proverbs viii. 27, 29), we are told that Divine Wisdom secured the harmony of the universe by giving to each creature, according to its degree in the scale of being, an end adequate to its powers. He thus measured the wants, the instinct, the appetite (that is, the desire) of each creature, according to its respective nature so that it would never have cravings, which its faculties were insufficient to satisfy.

In obedience, then, to this law, was not man, too, obliged to confine, within the limits of his finite nature, his desires for the good and the beautiful, that is, his searching after God, which is a necessity with every intelligent and free being? Otherwise, would it not be that, for certain beings, their happiness would have to be in objects, which must ever be out of the reach of their natural faculties? Great as the anomaly would appear, yet does it exist. True psychology, that is, the true science of the human mind, bears testimony to this desire for the infinite. Like every living creature around him, man thirsts for happiness. And yet, he is the only creature on earth that feels within itself longings for what is immensely beyond its capacity. While docile to the lord placed over them by the Creator, the irrational creatures are quite satisfied with what they find in this world. They render to man their several services, and their own desires are all fully gratified by what is within their reach: it is not so with Man. He can find nothing in this his earthly dwelling which can satiate his irresistible longings for a something which this Earth cannot give, and which time cannot produce: for that something is the infinite.

God Himself, when revealing Himself to man through the works He has created, that is, when showing Himself to man in a way which His natural powers can take in: God, when giving man to know Him as the First Cause, as Last End of all creatures, as unlimited perfection, as infinite beauty, as sovereign goodness, as the object which can content both our understanding and our will — no, not even God Himself, thus known and thus enjoyed, could satisfy man. This being, made out of nothing, wishes to possess the Infinite in his own substance. He longs after the sight of the face, he ambitions to enjoy the life, of his Lord and God. The Earth seems to him but a trackless desert where he can find no water that can quench his thirst. From early dawn of each wearisome day, his soul is at once on the watch, pining for that God who alone can quell his desires. Yes, his very flesh too has its thrilling expectations for that beautiful Infinite One (Psalms lxii.) Let us listen to the Psalmist, who speaks for us all: “As the hart pants after the fountains of water, so my soul pants after you, God! My soul has thirsted after the strong, living, God: when will I come and appear before the face of God? My tears have been my bread, day and night, while it is said to me daily:Where is your God? These things I remembered, and poured out my soul in me, for I will go over into the place of the wonderful tabernacle, even to the house of God. With the voice of joy and praise, the noise of one that is feasting. Why are you sad, my soul? and why do you trouble me? Hope in God, for I will still give praise to Him: the salvation of my countenance, and my God” (Psalms xli.)

If reason is to be the judge of such sentiments as these, they are but wild enthusiasm and silly pretensions. Why talk of the sight of God, of the life of God, of a banquet in which God Himself is to be the repast? Surely, these are things far too sublime for man, or any created nature, to reach. Between the wisher and the object longed for, there is an abyss— the abyss of disproportion, which exists between nothingness and being. Creation, all powerful as it is, does not in itself imply the filling up of that abyss. If the disproportion could ever cease to be an obstacle to the union aspired to, it would be by God Himself going that whole length, and then imparting something of His own divine energies to the creature that had once been nothing. But, what is there in man to induce the Infinite Being, whose magnificence is above the heavens, to stoop so low as that? This is the language of reason.

But, on the other hand, who was it that made the heart of man so great and so ambitious that no creature can fill it. How comes it that while the heavens show forth the glory of God, and the firmament declares how full of wisdom and power is every work of His hands (Psalm xviiii. 2), how comes it, we ask, that in man alone there is no proportion, no order? Could it be that the great Creator has ordered all things, excepting man alone, with measure, and number, and weight? (Wisdom xi. 21) That one creature who is the masterpiece of the whole creation, that creature for whom all the rest was intended as for its king, is he to be the only one that is a failure, and to live as a perpetual proclaimer that his Maker could not, or would not, be wise, when he made Man? Far from us be such a blasphemy! God is love, says Saint John (1 John iv. 8), and love is the knot which mere human philosophy can never loosen, and therefore must ever leave unsolved the problem of man’s desire for the Infinite.

Yes, God is charity. God is love. The wonder in all this question is not our loving and longing for God, but that He should have first loved us (1 John iv. 10). God is love, and love must have union. And union makes the united like one another. Oh the riches of the Divine Nature in which are infinite Power, and Wisdom, and Love! These three constitute, by their divine relations, that blessed Trinity which has been the light and joy of our souls ever since that bright Sunday’s Feast, which we kept in its honour! Oh the depth of the divine counsels in which that which is willed by boundless Love finds, in infinite Wisdom, how to fulfil in work what will be to the glory of Omnipotence!

Glory be to you, Holy Spirit! Your reign over the Church has but just begun this year of grace, and you are giving us light by which to understand the divine decrees. The day of your Pentecost brought us a new Law, a Law where all is brightness. And it was given to us in place of that Old one of shadows and types. The pedagogue, who schooled the infant world for the knowledge of truth, has been dismissed. Light has shone on us through the preaching of the Apostles, and the children of light, set free, knowing God and known by Him, are daily leaving behind them the weak and needy elements of early childhood (Galatians iii. 5, 24, 25; iv. 9). Scarcely, divine Spirit, was completed the triumphant Octave in which the Church celebrated your Coming and her own birth which that Coming brought, when all eager for the fulfilment of your mission of bringing to the Bride’s mind the things taught her by her Spouse (John xiv. 26), you showed her the divine and radiant mystery of the Trinity, that not only her Faith might acknowledge, but that her adoration and her praise might also worship it. And she and her children find their happiness in its contemplation and love. But, that first of the great mysteries of our faith, the unsearchable dogma of the Trinity, does not represent the whole richness of Christian revelation. You, O blessed Spirit, hasten to complete our instruction, and widen the horizon of our faith.

The knowledge you have given us of the essence and the life of the Godhead, was to be followed and completed by that of His external works, and the relations which this God has vouchsafed to establish between Himself and us. In this very week when we begin under your direction, to contemplate the precious gifts left us by our Jesus when He ascended on high (Psalms lxvii. 19), on this first Thursday, which reminds us of that holiest of all Thursdays — our Lord’s Supper — you, O divine Spirit, bring before our delighted vision the admirable Sacrament which is the compendium of the works of God, one in Essence and three in Persons; the adorable Eucharist, which is the divine memorial (Psalms cx. 4) of the wonderful things achieved by the united operation of Omnipotence, Wisdom and Love. The Most Holy Eucharist contains within itself the whole plan of God with reference to this world of ours. It shows how all previous ages have been gradually developing the divine intentions which were formed by infinite love and, by that same love, carried out to the end (John xiii. 1), yes, to the furthest extremity here below, that is, to Itself. For the Eucharist is the crowning of all the antecedent acts done by God in favour of His creatures. The Eucharist implies them all, it explains all.

Man’s aspirations for union with God —aspirations which are above his own nature, and yet so interwoven with it as to form one inseparable life — these strange longings can have but one possible cause, and it is God Himself — God who is the author of that being called Man. None but God has formed the immense capaciousness of man’s heart, and none but God is willing or able to fill it. Every act of the divine will, whether outside Himself or in, is pure love, and is referred to that Person of the Blessed Trinity who is the Third and who, by the mode of His Procession, is substantial and infinite love. Just as the Almighty Father sees all things before they exist in themselves in His only Word, who is the term of the divine intelligence, so likewise that those same things may exist in themselves, the same Almighty Father wishes them, in the Holy Ghost, who is to the divine will what the Word is to the infinite intelligence. The Spirit of Love, who is the final term to the fecundity of Persons in the divine essence, is, in God, the first beginning of the exterior works produced by God. In their execution, those exterior works are common to the Three Persons, but they are attributed to the Holy Ghost inasmuch as He, being the Spirit of Love, solicits the Godhead to act outside Itself. He is the Love who, with its divine weight and influence of love, sways the Blessed Trinity to the external act of creation: infinite Being leans, as it were, towards the deep abyss of nothingness, and out of that abyss, creates. The Holy Spirit opens the divine counsel, and says: “Let us make man to our image and likeness!” (Genesis i. 26) Then God creates man to His own image. He creates him to the image of God (Genesis i. 27) taking His own Word as the model to which He worked, for that Word is the sovereign archetype according to which is formed the more or less perfect essence of each created being. Like Him then, to whose image he was made, Man was endowed with understanding and free-will. As such, he would govern the whole inferior creation and make it serve the purposes of its Creator, that is, he would turn it into a homage of praise and glory to its God. And though that homage would be finite, yet would it be the best of which it was capable.

This is what is called the natural order. It is an immense world of perfect harmonies and, had it ever existed without any further perfection than its own natural one, it would have been a masterpiece of God’s goodness. And yet, it would have been far from realising the designs of the Spirit of Love.

With all the spontaneity of a will which was free not to act, and was as infinite as any other of the divine perfections, the Holy Spirit wills that Man should after this present life be a partaker of the very life of God by the face-to-face vision of the divine essence. Nay, the present life of the children of Adam here on this Earth is to put on, by anticipation, the dignity of that higher life, and this so literally, that the future one in Heaven is to be but the direct sequel, the consequent outgrowth, of the one led here below. And how is man, so poor a creature in himself, to maintain so high a standing? How is he to satisfy the cravings thus created within his heart? Fear not: the Holy Ghost has a work of His own, and He does it simultaneously with the act of creation, for the Three Persons infuse into their creature, Man, the image of their own divine attributes and, upon his finite and limited powers, graft, so to say, the powers of the divine nature. This being made for an end which is above created nature: these energies superadded to man’s natural powers, transforming, yet not destroying, them, and enabling the possessor to attain the end to which God calls him — is called the supernatural order, in contradistinction to that lower one, which would have been the order of nature, had not God, in His infinite goodness, thus elevated man above his own mere state as man, and that from the very first of his coming into existence.

Man will retain all those elements of the natural order which are essentials to his human nature. And with those essential elements, the functions proper to each: but there is a principle that, in every series, that should give the specific character to the aggregate which was the end proposed by the ruling mind. Now, the last end of Man was never other in the mind of his Creator than a supernatural one, and consequently the natural order, properly so called, never existed independently of, or separate from, the supernatural. There has been a proud school of philosophy, called “free and independent,” which professed to admit no truths except natural ones, and practise no other virtues than such as were merely human: but, such theories cannot hold. The disciples of godless and secular education, by the errors and crimes into which their unaided nature periodically leads them, demonstrate, almost as forcibly as the eminent sanctity of souls which have been faithful to grace, that mere nature, or mere natural goodness, never was and never can be, a permanent and normal state for man to live in. And even granting that he could so live, yet man has no right to reduce himself to a less exalted position, than the one intended for him by his Maker.

“By assigning us a supernatural vocation, God testified the love He bore us. But at the same time He acted as Lord, and evinced His authority over us. The favour He bestowed on us has created a duty corresponding. Men have a saying, and a true one: ‘He that has nobility, has obligations,’ and the principle holds with regard to the supernatural nobility, which it has pleased God to confer on us” (Mgr. Pie, Bishop of Poitiers, First Synodical Instruction on the Chief Errors of our times, viii.). It is a nobility which surpasses every other. It makes man not only an image of God, but like Him! (Genesis i. 26). Between God — the Infinite, the Eternal — and Man, who but a while back was nothing, and ever must be a creature — friendship and love are henceforth to be possible: such is the purpose of the capabilities, and powers, and the life, bestowed on the human creature by the Spirit of Love. So, then, those longings for His God, those thrillings of his very flesh, of which we were just now reading the inspired description by the Psalmist (Psalms lxii.) — they are not the outpourings of foolish enthusiasm! That thirsting after God, the strong, the living God; that hungering for the feast of divine union — no, they are not empty ravings (Psalms xli.). Made “partaker of the divine nature” (1 Peter i. 4), as Saint Peter so strongly words the mystery, is it to be wondered at if man be conscious of it, and lets himself be drawn by the uncreated flame, into the very central Fire, it came from to him? The Holy Spirit, too is present in his creature, and is witness of what Himself has produced there. He joins His own testimonies to that of our own conscience, and tells our spirit that we are truly what we feel ourselves to be — the sons of God (Romans viii. 16).

It is the same Holy Spirit who, secreting Himself in the innermost centre of our being, that He may foster and complete His work of love — yes, it is that same Spirit who at one time opens to our soul’s eye, by some sudden flash of light, the future glory that awaits us, and then inspires us with a sentiment of anticipated triumph (Ephesians i. 17, 18; Romans v. 2), and then, at another time, He breathes into us those unspeakable moanings (Romans viii. 26), those songs of the exile, whose voice is choked with the hot tears of love, for that his union with his God seems so long deferred. There are too certain delicious hymns, which coming from the very depths of souls wounded with divine love, make their way up to the throne of God. And the music is so sweet to Him that it almost looks as though it had been victorious, and had won the union! Such music of such souls does really win: if not the eternal union — for that could not be during this life of pilgrimage, and trials, and tears — still it wins wonderful unions here below, which human language has not the power to describe.

In this mysterious song between the Divine Spirit and man’s soul, we are told by the Apostle, that “ He, who searches hearts, knows what the Spirit desires, because he asks for the saints according to God” (Romans viii. 27). What a desire must not that be which the Holy Spirit desires! It is as powerful as the God who desires it. It is a desire, new, indeed, inasmuch as it is in the heart of man, but eternal, inasmuch as it is the desire of the Holy Spirit, whose Procession is before all ages. In response to this desire of the Spirit, the great God, from the infinite depths of His eternity, resolved to manifest Himself in time and unite Himself to man while yet a wayfarer, He resolved thus to manifest and unite Himself, not in His own Person, but in His Son, who is the brightness of His own glory, and the true figure of His own substance (Hebrews i. 3) God so loved the world (John iii. 16) as to give it His own Word —that divine Wisdom, who, from the bosom of His Father, had devoted Himself to our human nature. That bosom of the Father was imaged by what the Scripture calls Abraham’s bosom, where, under the ancient covenant, were assembled all the souls of the just, as in the place where they were to rest till the way into the Holy of Holies should be opened for the elect (Hebrews ix. 8). Now, it was from this bosom of His eternal Father, which the Psalmist calls the bride-chamber (Psalms xviii. 6), that the Bridegroom came forth at the appointed time, leaving His heavenly abode and coming down into this poor Earth to seek His Bride that, when He had made her His own, He might lead her back with Himself into His kingdom where He would celebrate the eternal nuptials. This is the triumphant procession of the Bridegroom in all His beauty (Psalms xliv. 5), a procession of which the Prophet Micheas, when speaking of his passing through Bethlehem, says that his going forth is from the days of eternity (Michaes v. 2). Yes, truly from the days of eternity, for as we are taught by the sublime principles of Catholic theology, the connection between the eternal procession of the divine Persons and the temporal mission is so intimate that one same eternity unites the two together in God: eternally, the Trinity has beheld the ineffable birth of the Only Begotten Son in the bosom of the Father. Eternally, with the same look, it has beheld Him coming as Spouse from that same Father’s bosom.

If we now come to compare the eternal decrees of God one with the other, it is not difficult to recognise which of them holds the chief place and, as such, comes first in the divine intention of creation. God the Father has made all things with a view to this union of human nature with His Son — union so close, that, for one individual member of that nature, it was to go so far as a personal identification with the Only Begotten of the Father. So universal, too, was the union to be, that all the members were to partake of it, in a greater or less degree. Not one single individual of the race was to be excluded, except through his own fault, from the divine nuptials with eternal Wisdom which was made visible in a Man, the most beautiful above all the children of men (Psalms lxiv. 2). For as the Apostle says, “God, who heretofore commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has Himself shined in our hearts, giving them the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in and by the face of Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians iv. 6). So that the mystery of the Marriage-Feast is, in all truth, the mystery of the world and the kingdom of Heaven is well likened to a King who made a Marriage for his Son (Matthew xxii. 1-14).

But where is the meeting between the King’s Son and his Betrothed to take place? Where is this mysterious union to be completed? Who is there to tell us what is the dowry of the Bride, the pledge of the alliance? Is it known who is the Master who provides the nuptial banquet, and what sorts of food will be served to the guests? The answer to these questions is given this very day throughout the Earth. It is given with loud triumphant joy. There can be no mistake. It is evident from the sublime message which Earth and Heaven re-echo, that He who is come is the Divine Word. He is adorable Wisdom, and is come forth from His royal abode to utter His voice in our very streets, and cry out at the head of multitudes, and speak His words in the entrance of city gates (Proverbs i. 20, 21). He stands on the top of the highest places by the way, in the midst of the paths, and makes Himself heard by the sons of men (Proverbs viii. 1-4). He bids His servants go to the tower and the city walls, with this His message: “Come! Eat my Bread, and drink the Wine which I have mingled for you; for Wisdom has built herself a House, supported on seven pillars; there she has slain her victims, mingled her wine, and set forth her table (Proverbs ix. 1-5): all things are ready; come to the marriage!” (Matthew xxii. 4).

Epistle – 1 Corinthians xi. 23‒29

Brethren, for I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which He was betrayed, took bread, and giving thanks, broke it and said: “Take and eat: this is my body which will be delivered for you: do this in commemoration of me.” In like manner, also, the chalice, after He had supped, saying: “This chalice is the new testament in my blood: do this, as often as you will drink, in commemoration of me. For as often as you will eat this bread and drink the chalice, you will show the death of the Lord until he comes.” Therefore, whoever eats this bread or drinks the chalice of the Lord unworthily, will be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord. But, let a man prove himself: and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of the chalice. For he who eats and drinks unworthily, eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

The Holy Eucharist, both as Sacrifice and Sacrament, is the very centre of the Christian religion, and therefore our Lord would have a fourfold testimony to be given in the inspired writings to its Institution. Besides the account given by Saints Matthew, Mark and Luke, we have also that of Saint Paul, which has just been read to us, and which he received from the lips of Jesus Himself, who vouchsafed to appear to him after his conversion, and instruct him.

Saint Paul lays particular stress on the power given by our Lord to His disciples of renewing the act which He Himself had just been doing. He tells us what the Evangelists had not explicitly mentioned that as often as a Priest consecrates the Body and Blood of Christ, he show (he announces) the Death of the Lord. And by that expression tells us that the Sacrifice of the Cross, and that of our Altars, is one and the same. It is likewise by the immolation of our Redeemer on the Cross, that the Flesh of this Lamb of God is truly meat, and His Blood truly drink, as we will be told in a few moments by the Gospel. Let not the Christian, therefore, forget it, not even on this day of festive triumph. The Church insists on the same truth in her Collect of this Feast: it is the teaching which she keeps repeating, through this formula, throughout the entire Octave: and her object in this is to impress vividly on the minds of her children this, the last and earnest injunction of our Jesus: “As often as you will drink of this cup of the new Testament, do it for the commemoration of me.” The selection she makes of this passage of Saint Paul for the Epistle should impress the Christian with this truth — that the divine Flesh which feeds his soul, was prepared on Calvary and that, although the Lamb of God is now living and impassible, He became our food, our nourishment, by the cruel death which He endured. The sinner who has made his peace with God will partake of this sacred Body with deep compunction, reproaching himself for having shed its Blood by his sins: the just man will approach the holy Table with humility, remembering how he too has had but too great a share in causing the innocent Lamb to suffer and that if he be at present in the state of grace, he owes it to the Blood of the Victim, whose Flesh is about to be given to him for his nourishment.

But let us dread, and dread above all things, the sacrilegious daring spoken against in such strong language by our Apostle — and which, by a monstrous contradiction, would attempt to put again to death Him who is the Author of Life. And this attempt to be made in the very banquet which was procured for us men by the Precious Blood of this Saviour! “Let a man prove himself,” says the Apostle, “and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of the chalice.” This proving one’s self is sacramental confession, which must be made by him who feels himself guilty of a grievous sin which has never before been confessed. However sorry he may be for it, were he even reconciled to God by an act of perfect contrition, the injunction of the Apostle, interpreted by the custom of the Church and the decisions of her Councils, forbids his approaching the holy Table until he has submitted his sin to the power of the Keys.

Sequence of Corpus Christi

Praise your Saviour, O Sion! Praise your Guide and Shepherd, in hymns and canticles. As much as you have power, so also dare; for He is above all praise, nor can you praise Him enough.

This day, there is given to us a special theme of praise—the living and life-giving Bread, which, as our faith assures us, was given to the Twelve brethren, as they sat at the Table of the holy Supper.

Let our praise be full, let it be sweet; let our soul’s jubilee be joyous, let it be beautiful; for we are celebrating that great day, on which is commemorated the first institution of this Table.

In this Table of the new King, the new Pasch of the new Law puts an end to the old Passover. Newness puts the old to flight, and so does truth the shadow; the light drives night away.

What Christ did at that Supper, that He said was to be done in remembrance of Him. Taught by His sacred institutions, we consecrate the Bread and Wine into the Victim of Salvation.

This is the dogma given to Christians — that bread passes into flesh, and wine into blood. What you understand not, what you see not — that let a generous faith confirm you in, beyond nature’s course.

Under the different species — which are signs not things — there hidden lie things of infinite worth. The Flesh is food, the Blood is drink; yet Christ is whole, under each species.

He is not cut by the receiver, nor broken, nor divided: He is taken whole. He is received by one, He is received by a thousand; the one receives as much as all; nor is He consumed, who is received.

The good receive, the bad receive — but with the difference of life or death. ’Tis death to the bad, ’tis life to the good: lo! how unlike is the effect of the one like receiving.

And when the Sacrament is broken, waver not! but remember, that there is as much under each fragment, as is hid under the whole.

Of the substance that is there, there is no division; it is but the sign that is broken and He who is the Signified, is not thereby diminished, either as to state or stature.

Lo! the Bread of Angels is made the food of pilgrims; verily, it is the Bread of the children, not to be cast to dogs.

It is foreshown in figures—when Isaac is slain, when the Paschal Lamb is prescribed, when Manna is given to our fathers.

O good Shepherd! True Bread! Jesus! have mercy on us: feed us, defend us: give us to see good things in the land of the living.

O You, who know and can do all things, who feeds us mortals here below, make us your companions in the banquet yonder above, and your joint-heirs, and fellow-citizens with the Saints! Amen. Alleluia.

Gospel – John vi. 56‒59

At that time Jesus said to the multitude of the Jews, “My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father has sent me, and I live by the Father; so, he who eats me, the same, also, will live by me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Not as your fathers did eat manna and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever.”

Praise be to you, O Christ.

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

The beloved Disciple could not remain silent on the Mystery of Love. But, at the time when he wrote his Gospel, the institution of the Eucharist had been sufficiently recorded by the three Evangelists who had preceded him, as also by the Apostle of the Gentiles. Instead, therefore, of repeating what these had written, he completed it by relating the solemn promise made by Jesus on the banks of Lake Tiberias a year before the Last Supper. He was surrounded by the thousands who were in admiration at his having miraculously multiplied the loaves and fishes: Jesus takes the opportunity of telling them that He Himself is the true bread come down from Heaven, and which, unlike the manna given to their fathers by Moses, could preserve man from death. Life is the best of all gifts, as death is the worst of evils. Life exists in God as in its source (Psalms xxxv. 10). He alone can give it to whom He pleases, and restore it to him who has lost it. Man, who was created in grace, lost his life when he sinned, and incurred death. But God so loved the world, as to send it, lost as it was, His Son (John iii. 16) with the mission of restoring man to life. True God of true God, Light of Light, the Only Begotten Son is, likewise, true Life of true Life, by nature: and, as the Father enlightens them that are in darkness, by this Son, who is His Light, so, likewise, He gives life to them that are dead, and He gives it to them in this same Son of His, who is His living Image.

The Word of God, then, came among men, that they might have life, and abundant life (John x. 10). And whereas it is the property of food to increase and maintain life, therefore did He become our Food, our living and life-giving Food, which has come down from Heaven. Partaking of the life eternal which He has in His Father’s bosom, the Flesh of the Word communicates this same life to them that eat It. That, (as Saint Cyril of Alexandria observes) which, of its own nature, is corruptible, cannot be brought to life in any other way, than by its corporal union with the body of Him who is life by nature: now, just as two pieces of wax melted together by the fire make but one, so are we and Christ made one by our partaking of His Body and Blood. This life, therefore, which resides in the Flesh of the Word, made ours within us, will be no more overcome by death. On the day appointed, this life will throw off the chains of the old enemy and will triumph over corruption in these our bodies, making them immortal. Hence it is, that the Church, with her delicate feelings both as Bride and Mother, selects from this same passage of Saint John, her Gospel for the daily Mass of the Dead, thus drying up the tears of the living who are mourning over their departed friends, and consoling them by bringing them into the presence of the holy Host, which is the source of true life, and the centre of all our hopes. Thus was it to be, that not only the soul was to be renewed by her contact with the Word, but even the body, earthly and material as it is, was to share, in its way, of what our Saviour called the Spirit that quickens (John vi. 64).

“They,” as Saint Gregory of Nyssa has so beautifully said, “who have been led by an enemy’s craft to take poison, neutralise, by some other potion, the power which would cause death. And as was the deadly, so likewise the curative must be taken into the very bowels of the sufferer, that so the efficacy of that which brings relief may permeate through the whole body. Thus we, having tasted that which ruined our nature, require a something which will restore and put to right that which was disordered and that, when this salutary medicine will be within us, it may, as an antidote, drive out the mischief of the poison, which had previously been taken into the body. And what is this (salutary medicine)? No other than that Body, which had both been shown to be stronger than death, and was the beginning of our life. For, says the Apostle, as a little leaven makes the whole paste to be like itself, so, likewise, that Body, which God had willed should be put to death, when it is within ours, transmutes and transfers it wholly to Itself... Now, the only way by which a substance may be thus got into the body, is by its being taken as food and drink.”

18 JUNE – SAINTS MARK AND MARCELLIAN (Martyrs)

 

Mark and Marcellian were twin brothers born to a noble family in Rome. They were baptised in their youth and were secretly Christians for many years before being denounced. They were arrested and condemned to be beheaded, but their execution was delayed, their friends obtaining a respite of 30 days in the hope that they could convince them to renounce their faith and worship the state gods. Their parents Tranquillinus and Maria, and their wives and children visited them, in an attempt to break their constancy, but Saint Sebastian also visited them and encouraged them to remain true to Christ. He also succeeded in converting Tranquillinus and Maria, and afterwards by loosening the tongue of Zöe, the wife of Nicostratus (the registrar), converted him also, and Chromatius (an officer of the Prefect of Rome), who set Mark and Marcellian free and resigned his position. Marcus and Marcellian were hidden by a Christian officer named Castulus in his apartments in the palace of Diocletian, but were betrayed by the false Christian Torquatus and were arrested again. They were tortured and killed in 286 AD.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

We have already met with these noble athletes of today’s feast, for on January 20th, when celebrating Saint Sebastian, the brave defender of holy Church, Mark and Marcellian, appeared at his side as the noblest conquest won by the sainted head of the praetorian guards. There are other heroes likewise gained over by his zealous intrepidity whose names gild the pages of the Martyrology. But these two whose festival we are keeping were the immediate occasion of Sebastian’s leading to God so goodly a troop of valiant Christians. Their conversion prepared Sebastian’s martyrdom by reason of his apostolate in their regard, and their glory eternally redounds to him, around whom in Heaven, they form a resplendent phalanx.

Captivity, torments, and even the sentence of death pronounced on them, had failed to shake the courage of these two brethren. A trial yet more terrible awaited them, namely the sight forced on them of the heart-broken grief caused to all they loved on Earth, by this their sentence of condemnation. For their family not being Christian knew no bounds to sorrow. Their father and mother bent down by years, the wife of each, leading by the hand or in her arms a group of weeping children, all uttering bitterest reproaches against these soldiers of Christ for the destitution in which their coming death would plunge the survivors, such was the dire attack!

Sebastian, profiting by the liberty his position afforded to approach the Christians in prison, was ever their comfort and encourager. He failed not to be present at this scene, for his noble heart fully realised how dangerously severe such a trial must be for souls as yet unscathed by any personal peril. The danger he knew might be imminent at that moment. Wherefore scorning his own safety, he there and then revealed himself a Christian in order to hold out a strengthening hand to the two brethren. Moreover, God lent such wondrous efficacy to his words that they converted even the pagans there assembled. Thus Mark and Marcellian had the joy of beholding those whose piteous complaints had a moment before so painfully thrilled their souls, now applauding their constancy and demanding Baptism.

* * * * *

THE Holy Ghost filled you with strength, glorious martyrs, and the love which He poured into your hearts changed into exquisite delights, torments that terrify our cowardice. Yet, after all, of how much less account are those tortures that touched but your perishable body, compared with that intense anguish of soul over which you so nobly triumphed! The dire grief of those whom you held dearer far than life, and whom, to all appearance, you needs must leave in hopeless woe, was verily the culminating pitch of your martyrdom. Only such can fail to realise this, who deserve the reproach cast by Saint Paul on the pagans of his day, that they are without affection (Romans i. 32). Yes, when the world once more presents such a hateful spectacle as this, then will be the sign of the last day’s near approach, so says the same Apostle (2 Timothy iii. 1, 3). Nevertheless, human love must needs cede to that of God: “He that loves father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me: and he who loves son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me” (Matthew x. 3, 7). You understood all this, dear martyrs. Your relatives who would separate you from our Lord became but enemies in your eyes (Matthew x. 36). At that very instant, our Jesus who can never let Himself be outdone in generosity, restored these dear ones to you by taking them, through a miracle of grace, together with you and because of your example, to Himself. Thus do you complete for us, the instructions already given by a Julitta and her boy, by a Vitus and his glorious companions. Obtain for us, you victors in such keen trials, an ever growing courage and love proportionate to our increase in the light and knowledge of our duty to God.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Malaga in Spain, the holy martyrs Cyriacus, and the virgin Paula, who were overwhelmed with stones and yielded up their souls to God.

At Tripoli in Phoenicia, in the time of the governor Hadrian, St. Leontius, a soldier, who, through bitter torments, attained to the crown of martyrdom, together with the tribune Hypatius and Theodulus, who he had converted to Christ.

The same day, St. Jetherius, martyr, in the persecution of Diocletian. After enduring fire and other torments he was put to death with the sword.

At Alexandria, the passion of St. Marina, virgin.

At Bordeaux, St. Amandus, bishop and confessor.

At Sacca in Sicily, St. Calogerus, hermit, whose holiness is principally manifested by the deliverance of possessed persons.

At Schongau, St. Elizabeth, virgin, celebrated for her observance of monastic discipline.

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

Thanks be to God.

18 JUNE – WEDNESDAY AFTER TRINITY SUNDAY

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

We have not as yet reached the Feast of the divine Memorial, not until tomorrow will we have it in all its splendour. But this evening at first Vespers the Church will begin her acclamations to the Eternal Priest. And, although the Sovereign Pontiffs have not ordained that a Vigil, properly so called, will precede the Feast of Corpus Christi, yet have they granted indulgences to a voluntary fast practised on this its eve. Let us now resume the history of the Church’s worship of the great mystery.

We have already seen how the unity of the Church is based on the Eucharist. Our Lord Jesus Christ in that Sacrament is the corner-stone on which rises, in the harmony of its several parts, the temple of living stones built to the glory of God (Ephesians ii. 21). Jesus is the High Priest (Hebrews v. 1), ordained for men, Himself being Man, that He may present to God the homage of His brethren by offering to His and their Father a Sacrifice in the name of all. And, although this homage of regenerate mankind — this Sacrifice which is the highest expression of that homage — owes its whole worth to the infinite dignity of Him who is the Head of the Church — yet the Sacrifice is only complete when there is the union of the Members with the Head. The Head must have the Body. The Church is, as the Apostle tells us, the fullness, the completion, of Him who is filled in all (Ephesians i. 22, 23). The Church perfects the Sacrifice as an integral portion of the Victim who is offered on the altar. What is true of the Church is true, likewise, of each one of us who are Members of Christ. And we are really His Members, provided we be united in the great Action of the Sacrifice by that intimate union which makes one Body of many Members.

In this consists the social influence of the Eucharist. The human family had been broken up by sin. It regains its lost unity by the Blood of the Lamb and the original intention which God had in creating the world is fulfilled. After all other beings, there came forth, out of nothing, the creature Man. He was to give a voice of praise to the whole of creation for, his own twofold nature, material and spiritual, made him the compendium of all other creatures. When he was restored by redemption he regained his position in the glorious choir of beings. The Eucharist, the Thanksgiving, the praise by excellence, is the sweet produce of the human race. The Eucharist — that grand hymn of divine Wisdom sung to the King of ages — ascends from this Earth of ours, blending the two harmonies into one: the ineffable harmony of the eternal Canticle, that is, the Word in the Father’s bosom— and the harmony of the new Canticle which is repeated by the choir of creatures to the glory of their Creator.

The Ages of Faith lived on this grand truth. They thoroughly understood the priceless worth of the gift bestowed by the Man-God upon His Church. Appreciating the honour thence accruing to our Earth, they felt themselves bound to respond to it, in the name of all creatures, by giving to the celebration of the sacred Mystery everything that ritual could impart of grandeur and solemnity. The Liturgy for the Christians of those times was exactly what is implied by the word: it was the public function, the social act, by excellence. And as such it claimed every sort of external pomp, and the presence of the whole people round the altar was looked upon as a matter of course. As to the lawfulness of what are called Private Masses, it would be easy to prove by most authentic facts of history that what the Catholic Church teaches regarding them was her teaching from the very commencement. And yet, practically, and as a general rule, the richness of ceremonial, the enthusiasm of sacred chant, the magnificence of sacred rites, were, for a long period, regarded as inseparable from the offering up of the Holy Sacrifice.

The solemnities of divine service as celebrated in any Catholic Cathedral on the greatest Feast in the Year are but a feeble image of the magnificent forms of the ancient Liturgies, such as we described them yesterday. The Church herself, whose desires for what is most perfect never vary, ever evinces a marked predilection for the remnants she has been able to keep up of her ancient forms of worship. But as far as the generality of her people is concerned, there can be no doubt of the existence of a growing feeling of indifference for the external pomp with which the Holy Sacrifice is so deservedly accompanied. Whatever demonstrations of Christian piety still exist are directed elsewhere. The cultus of the divine Presence in the Eucharist as developed in these our own times, is certainly a blow to the heresy which denies that Presence. It is, too, a joy to every Catholic who loves God. But care must be taken, lest a movement which is so profitable to individual souls, and so redounding to the glory of the Holy Sacrament, should be turned by the craft of the enemy against the Eucharist itself. Now, this might easily be the case if, in consequence of such devotion being ill-regulated, the very primary object of the Eucharistic dogma, which is Sacrifice, were permitted to lose its place, either in the appreciation, or in the practical religion, of the Faithful.

In the admirable connection existing throughout the whole body of Christian revelation, there can be no such thing as one dogma becoming a danger to another. Every new truth, or every truth presented under a new aspect, is a progress in the Church, and an acquisition for her children. But the progress is then only a true one when in its application, the new truth, or its new aspect, is not treated with such prominence as to throw a more important truth into the shade. Surely no family would ever count that gain of new property to be a boon, which would jeopardise or lessen the rich patrimony which past ages had secured. The principle is a self-evident one and must be borne in mind when studying the different phases of the history of any human society, and especially when the History of the Church is in question. If the Holy Spirit, who is ever urging the Church to what is best, incessantly adorning her for the eternal nuptial, and is decking her brow with a gradual increase of light, yet is it but too often the case that the human element of which she partakes through her members, her children, makes its weight tell upon the Bride of Christ. When that happens, she redoubles her maternal solicitude for these her children. They are too delicate to live on the summits and bear the bracing atmosphere to which their fore-fathers were accustomed. She herself continues her aspirations after what is most perfect, and approaches gradually nearer to heaven. But for the sake of her weakly children she quits the mountain paths she loved to tread in better times, for those paths kept her closer to her divine Spouse. She comes lower down, she is content to lose something of her external charms, she stoops that she may the better reach the children she has to save. This her condescension is admirable, but it certainly gives no right to the children who live in these less healthy times to think themselves better than their forefathers. Is a sick man better than the one who is in health, because the food which is indispensable for keeping up the little strength he has is given to him under new forms, and such as will suit his debilitated frame?

Because, in these our days, a certain increase of devotion towards the divine Host who dwells in our tabernacles has been observed in some souls, and the external demonstration of this devotion is under a new form, it has been asserted, that “no age ever equalled our own in the cultus of the Most Holy Sacrament!” And because of this holy enthusiasm [the nineteenth] century, which, with its restless activity, has opened out so many new methods of devotion, has been called by a certain writer, “the great age of the Eucharist!” Would to God these assertions were correct, for it is quite true, and history is rich in bearing testimony to the fact “that an age is more or less glorious according to its devotion towards the adorable Eucharist.” But it is no less true that if the different centuries be compared with each other for devotion towards the Sacrament of Love — which, at all times, is the very life of the Church — there can be no doubt but that that ought to be counted as the golden age in which our Lord’s intentions in instituting the divine Mystery were the best understood and carried out, and not that in which individual devotion was busiest.

Now leaving aside for the present all principles connected with dogma, and which will find their place more appropriately a few days later, we have history to bear witness to this fact that, so long as the western nations kept up their faith and fervour, the Church, who is the faithful and sure interpreter of her Jesus’ intentions, maintained the discipline observed in the worship practised towards the Eucharist during the early ages. After her two-fold victory over the pagan persecutions and the obstinate dogmatism of the Emperors of Byzantium, the Church, the noble depository of the New Testament, was in possession of a freedom greater than she has had at any other period. Her children, too, made it their perfection to follow her every wish. Thus free to act as she knew was best and sure to be obeyed, she kept to the way of Eucharistic worship which her Martyrs had followed and her Doctors had so enthusiastically developed in their writings: that is, she took the energies of the new children she had received by the conversion of barbarian nations, and centred them in the Sacrifice, that is, in the holy fatigues of solemn Mass, and the Canonical Hours, which are but a natural irradiation of the Sacrifice.

Nothing in those times was more Catholic, nothing less individual and private, than the Eucharistic worship thus based on the social character which pertains to the Sacrifice. It was the uppermost idea even in such of the Faithful as, through sickness or other personal reasons, were obliged to communicate, of the universal Victim, separate from the rest of the people. It was the one leading thought which made them turn their hearts and their adorations towards the gilded dove, or the ivory tower, in which were conserved, under the mysterious integrity of the Sacrament, the precious remnants of the Sacrifice. Faith in the Real Presence, a faith quite as animated and deep as any that can be witnessed in our own times, was the soul of the whole Liturgy. It was the basis of the entire system of the Church’s rites and ceremonies, all of which are unmeaning if you take away the Catholic dogma of the Eucharist. This dogma was admitted by all the children of the Church as a principle beyond discussion. It was their dearest treasure. It was a truth which was both foundation stone and roofing of the House built among men by Eternal Wisdom. To a superficial observer it might seem as though the Faithful of those early ages were less intent upon it than we now are: but is it not always the case that the rock which supports the edifice, and the timber which roofs it, call for less solicitude when the building is under no risk, either from the indifference of its inmates, or from the attacks of enemies outside?

The Church herself cannot grow decrepit, but it is a law in history that, even within her fold, and in spite of the vitality she imparts to nations, no society ever maintains itself long at its highest pitch of perfection. Men are like stars in this, that their apogee marks the period of their decline. They only seem to mount on high that they may speedily descend: and, after the fullest vigour of age, we gradually approach the impotency of the old man. So was it to be with Christendom itself, with that grand confederation which had been established by the Church in the strong unity of unfeigned charity, and of faith unalloyed by error. The Crusades were for a second time rousing the world to holy enterprise. The preaching of Saint Bernard was stirring mankind to zeal for the cause of God. The impulse was so immense that it seemed as though the event marked the culminating point of Christ’s reign on Earth, and secured perpetuity to the power of the Church. And yet, that was the very period when old signs of decay returned, and with fresh intensity. The heroic Pontiff Saint Gregory VII had stemmed the evil for a considerable time, but at the period we speak of, a relapse set in and advanced with its work of ravage till it brought about the great revolt of the fifteenth century and the general apostasy of nations.

The celebrated prophetess of the Middle Ages, Saint Hildegard, was then scanning with her eagle eye the miseries of her own day, and the still more sombre threats of the future. She that was used to write the messages of God to Pontiffs and Kings, penned these words in a Letter to Werner and his brother Priests of Kircheim. They had written to Hildegard and solicited her reply:

“It was while lying for a long time on a bed of sickness in the year of the Lord’s Incarnation one thousand one hundred and seventy, that I saw, wakeful both in body and mind, a most beautiful image having a woman’s appearance: she was all perfect in her suavity, and most dear in the charms of her beauty which was such as that the human mind could in no wise comprehend it. Her stature was so great that it reached from earth even up to Heaven. Her face, too, beamed with exceeding brightness, and her eye was fixed on Heaven. She was clad in a spotless garment, made of white silk. The mantle which covered her was adorned with most precious stones, of emerald, sapphire and likewise of beads and pearls. The shoes on her feet were of onyx. But her face was covered with dust, and her garment was rent on the right side, and her mantle had lost its elegant beauty, and her shoes were dimmed. And she, with a loud and plaintive voice, cried out towards the high heavens: ‘Hearken, Heaven, that my face is defiled! And wail, Earth, that my garment is rent! And you, abyss, tremble, because my shoes are dimmed. Foxes have holes and birds of the air nests (Matthew viii. 20), but I have not helper or comforter, nor staff on which to lean, and by which to have support... They that should have adorned me in every way have in all these things, abandoned me. For it is they that besmear my face by dragging the Body and Blood of my Spouse into the great uncleanness of the impurity of their living, and the great filth of their fornications and adulteries; and by buying and selling holy things, defiling them, as a child would be, were he put down in mire before swine... The wounds of Christ my Spouse are contaminated... Princes and a headlong people will rush on you, priests! They will cast you forth, and put you to flight, and will take your riches away from you...They will say: Let us cast out from the Church these adulterers, and extortioners, and men that are full of all wickedness! And in doing this, they will have it that they do a service to God because they say that it is by you that the Church is defiled.... By God’s permission, many nations will begin to rage against you in their judgements, and many people will devise vain things concerning you, for they will count as nothing your priestly office and your consecration. Kings of the earth will assist these in your overthrow, and they will thirst after the earthly things you possess; and the Princes in whose dominions you live will make a convention in this one plan — that they may drive you out of their territories, because you, by your most wicked deeds, have driven away the innocent Lamb from your midst. And I heard a voice from heaven, saying: This image is the Church!’”

What a fearful description of the evils brought on the Church in the twelfth century! What a prophecy of its far off results! These miseries were in keeping with the way in which the august Mystery of the Altar was treated. It has always been so. The disorders of the sanctuary necessarily brought about relaxation in the people. They grew wearied of receiving the heavenly food from hands that were but too often unworthy ones. The guests at the banquet of divine Wisdom became rare, so rare indeed that in 1215 a General Council, the Fourth of Lateran, passed the well-known law which obliges, under the severest penalties, the Faithful of both sexes to receive Communion at least once in the year. The evil became so great that the legislation of Councils and the genius of Innocent III, the last of the great Popes of the Middle Ages, would not have sufficed to arrest it, had not God given to His Church the two Saints, Dominic and Francis: they reclaimed the Priesthood and for a time brought back the people to the practice of Christian piety.

But the ancient forms of the Liturgy had perished during the interval of the crisis. The oblation in common which supposed that all communicated in the divine Victim, had given place to private foundations, and to honoraries or stipendium. In themselves they were quite lawful, but they had been so considerably increased by the introduction of the mendicant Orders that a change in the Liturgy was the consequence. Private Masses for special intentions were multiplied in order to satisfy obligations which had been contracted with individual donors, and by a necessary consequence the imposing rite of con-celebration maintained in Rome till the thirteenth century entirely disappeared in the Western Church. The Sacrifice of the Mass was no longer brought before the Faithful with the majestic ceremonial which in former times had secured to it a preponderance over the whole religion and life of the Christian people. The Holy Eucharist soon began to be given out of the time of Mass, and for reasons which were not always serious ones. More than one scholastic theologian encouraged the practice. If this scholastic had not true learning on his side, he had his sharp definitions and categorical divisions, and Communion seemed to become, in the minds of some men, a something distinct by itself in the institution of the Eucharist. This was a forerunner of what we so often find practised in our own times: Communions made isolated and furtively on principle, that is, in accordance with an ideal of spirituality which has a dread of a crowd, and a repugnance to the excitement of the Church’s ceremonies!

The notion, then, of the Sacrifice which includes the chief motive of the Presence of the Incarnate Word in the Eucharist was no longer brought before the people with the emphatic pre-eminence of former ages. As a counter result of this, the truth of this Presence of our God under the Eucharistic species gained an ascendancy over the soul in a more exclusive, and therefore, in a more impressive and direct way. It was at this period that, out of a spirit of holy fear, and from a feeling of respect, a feeling which can never be too great, several ancient usages began to be discontinued. Usages which were established at first with a view the better to realise or express the application of the Sacrifice, were afterwards suppressed as exposing the sacred species to involuntary irreverence. It was thus that the custom of giving the chalice to the laity, and communion to infants, fell into desuetude.

An immense ritual change then was brought about. The Church accepted it, although she was aware of its being, in more than one point, a degeneracy as compared with former ages. The time had come when the grand social forms of the Liturgy requiring, as they did, the strong union of Christian nations for the basis, would be but unrealities. The jealous mistrust of States against the Church, that is, against the power which was the sole bond of mutual union between the several nations, was ever on the increase and only waited for an occasion to break out into open hostility. Diplomacy became a system of rupture between one country and another, just as the Church had been the framer and maintainer of their union.

If the evil from within was thus great, still greater were the dangers to which the Faithful were exposed by the onslaughts of heresy. And yet, it is precisely in such a time as this, that is most manifested the superhuman prudence of the Church. In defence of that which is the essential element of her existence here below — in defence, that is, of Faith — she formed a rampart out of the very ruins caused by the liturgical revolution he had been compelled to accept. She sanctioned with her authority what was worthy of sanction, and thereby controlled the movement. She took advantage of the increase of devotion to the Real Presence which the movement had excited. She gave a fresh direction to her Liturgy by substituting a ceaseless expression of the dogma for the less precise, though not less complete and far grander, forms of the earlier period. It was a reply to heresy, all the stronger because of its being more direct. We have already seen how, in consequence of the covert attacks of false doctrine, there was an evident reason felt in the thirteenth century for instituting a special Feast in honour of the Eucharist as the Mystery of Faith. That reason became sheer necessity at the approach, foreseen by God alone, of the bold triumph of the sacramentarian heresy. It was necessary to forestall the attack, and by so doing to render the coming assault less hurtful to the Christian world, and less injurious to that Lord who is present in the Sacrament of His Love. The means for efficaciously realising these two ends was the development of exterior devotion to the Real Presence. The Church would thus proclaim her unshaken faith in the dogma, and the adorable Sacrament would receive, by the renewed fervour of faithful souls, a compensation for the indifference and insults of others.

Established throughout the world by the authority of the Roman Pontiffs, the Feast of Corpus Christi was therefore both in itself and in its developments, as we were observing yesterday, the commencement of a new phase in the Catholic worship of the holy Eucharist. Once the Feast was instituted, there followed Processions, Benedictions, Forty-Hours, Expositions, Watchings in adoration, each of which was an additional affirmation of the Church’s belief in the Real Presence. The piety of her children was rekindled, and to that Lord who, for our sakes, dwells under the sacramental species, there was offered that tribute of homage which is so justly His due.

17 JUNE – SAINT GREGORY LUIGI BARBARIGO (Bishop and Confessor)

Gregory Luigi Barbarigo was born in Venice in 1625 to the Venetian Senator Giovanni Francesco Barbarigo and his wife Lucrezia Leoni. After serving as a diplomat, Gregory was ordained a priest in 1655 and became a prelate to Pope Alexander VII. In 1567 he became Bishop of Bergamo and in 1660 he became a Cardinal. In 1664 he became Bishop of Padua and took Saint Charles Borromeo as his model. He died in 1697, was beatified by Pope Clement XIII in 1761 and was canonised by Pope John XXIII in 1960.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Rome, during the persecution of Diocletian, the birthday of 262 holy martyrs who were put to death for the faith of Christ and buried on the old Via Salaria, at the foot of Cucumer hill.

At Terracina, St. Montanus, a soldier, who received the crown of martyrdom after suffering many torments in the time of the emperor Hadrian and the ex-consul Leontius.

At Venafro, the holy martyrs Meander and Marcian who were beheaded in the persecution of Maximian.

At Chalcedon, the holy martyrs Manuel, Sabel, and Ismael, who the king of Persia sent as ambassadors to Julian the Apostate to treat of peace. Having firmly refused to worship idols as they had been commanded by the emperor, they were put to the sword.

At Apollonia, in Macedonia, the holy martyrs Isaurus, deacon, Innocent, Felix, Jeremiah and Peregrinus, natives of Athens, who were tortured in different manners by the tribune Tripontius, and finally decapitated.

At Amelia in Umbria, the bishop St. Himerius, whose body was translated to Cremona.

In the territory of Bourges, St. Gundulphus, bishop.

At Orleans, St. Avitus, priest and confessor.

In Phrygia, St. Hypatius, confessor. Also St. Bessarion, anchorite.

At Pisa in Tuscany, St. Rainerius, confessor.

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

Thanks be to God.